Carbondale Pennsylvania Criminal Defense Law Blog

Police in Lackawanna County recently arrested a woman who had been accused of selling a controlled substance in Cortland, N.Y. According to news reports, the woman was extradited from Pennsylvania to New York to stand trial. Such occurrences are common - a person is accused of committing a crime in State A and flees to State B, where the person is arrested. Soon after the arrest, the suspect is physically transported to State A and incarcerated pending a trial. How does this process work?

The initial answer lies in Article IV Section 2 of the United States Constitution, which provides that

Pennsylvania has long been unique as one of only four states whose drunk driving laws did not make any form of DUI violation a felony. The legislature has now shed that questionable distinction by passing a bill that makes certain repeat offenders guilty of a felony.

The bill received final votes on October 17, 2018 in both chambers of the legislature. The new law makes a third conviction for drunk driving a felony if the driver has more than twice the legal concentration of alcohol in the blood stream. A fourth DUI conviction, regardless of the driver's blood alcohol content, was also made a felony. One of the groups that supported the bill, Pennsylvania Parents Against Impaired Driving, said that repeat DUI offenders are responsible for approximately 40% of all DUI-related fatalities.

The line between expressing forbidden criminal intent and aberrant mental health can be quite vague. The case of a man currently in the Lackawanna County Prison demonstrates the difficulties of distinguishing between expressions of intent to commit hate crimes and statements resulting from an emotional disturbance.

The defendant in this case is a 22-year-old man who was arrested by federal officers on weapons charges, including possessing an illegal machine gun. The arrest came after the officers became aware of the defendant's expression of white supremacist views on social media. After the man's arrest, federal prosecutors filed a motion to detain him pending trial because he is a public danger. The man's attorney said that he had posted "stupid stuff" on social media without realizing how the posts would reflect on him. The suspect served three months in the Navy before being discharged for medical reasons. The exact reasons for the discharge have not been specified. Court papers filed by the United States Attorney's office refer to a "depressive disorder" that require psychiatric evaluation.

As the Pennsylvania legislative session nears adjournment, people who consider themselves victims of drunk drivers are pushing for stronger penalties. The draft legislation is aimed at repeat drunk drivers, and its principal goal is to make a third DUI offense a felony.

One of the leading advocates for the legislation is an organization called Pennsylvania Parents Against Impaired Driving. The founder of the group lost his daughter four years ago when her car was struck by a driver whose blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit. He had also taken heroin and was driving on a suspended license. The girl's father says that the pain from losing a child never goes away.