Posted on
August 1, 2008 in
I refuse to give them any link love, but google “it could also be used as presumptive evidence against you”. You’ll see a link to a site that implies pro bono help for people charged with DUI in Houston.
What the site is, apparently, is some sort of link farm. The owner (my2305@yahoo.com) aims, I gather, for people searching for “Houston DUI Lawyer” and such to come upon this pseudoblog and click on the Google ads in the margins. She makes a little money for each click.
Unfortunately, the advice she gives:
On the other hand, you must not refuse to take the breath test because
that will lead to automatic suspension of your driver’s license and it
could also be used as presumptive evidence against you and could carry
additional civil or criminal sanctions.
Is really bad. (Refusing to take the breath test does not lead to automatic suspension of your driver’s license. It can’t be used as “presumptive evidence against you”. It doesn’t carry additional criminal sanctions.)
I’m pretty sure that no Houston lawyer who has actually handled a DUI case would write this, but might anyone happening upon this see it as serious advice?
I’d like to think that my2305’s anonymity would militate against anyone actually taking her advice seriously. It’d be nice if the internet community’s ability to discriminate good information from bad were better than that of the Minneapolis Police Department but, judging from the number of anonymous blog commenters we see who seem to expect their ideas to be taken seriously, I don’t have a lot of confidence that the internet’s standards of reliability are high enough to keep people from making bad decisions based on anonymous information.
You wrote:
(Refusing to take the breath test does not lead to automatic suspension of your driver’s license. It can’t be used as “presumptive evidence against you”. It doesn’t carry additional criminal sanctions.)
Depends on where you are. I’m glad that Texas is enlightened, but here in Washington state, all of the above ARE true.
This whole site is crap. Every day, a new canned softball. (“When should I hire a qualified Houston Texas DWI attorney?” Ooooh … tough one.) The “questions” remind me of when Dr. Laura tried to make it on TV and had to have shills from her staff call in or pose as audience members to feed her straight lines.
And since when is being acquitted of DUI “beating” anything? Is this site trying to accommodate people who are trying to get away with something? Also, is the lawyer running the website partnered with an insurance agency selling SR-22s?
This site seems to be violating a lot of the DRs on advertising. And the DTPA. Any idea what Einstein is running it? I guess I could send an email and find out.
The site in question is targeting Houston DUI clients.
Well, when I Google “it could also be used as presumptive evidence against you”, I get this page as the first entry. Your kung fu is strong.
Anyway, the whois information for the domain name shows it owned by someone named Austin Davis at Waypoint LLC, in Magnolia, Texas. They also appear to run a site called TrustMyMechanic.com, featuring the truth about auto repair.
(Keep in mind that the registered name owner isn’t always the person running the site.)
Maybe AHCL can go after them for practicing mechanics/law without a license?
FWIW, there’s a disclaimer. Click on the “contact” link, open the file in a text editor:
Sooo… what will happen if you refuse a breath test???
Good question. The short answer is that by the time you’re offered a breath test you’ve already been arrested, so bad things are going to happen, but odds are that they’ll be less bad if you refuse the breath test.