In Manatee County Florida, volunteers for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) are preparing to launch a pilot program in cooperation with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office. The six month "Traffic Observation Program" begins in late, 2008. Volunteer traffic observers from MADD will report vehicle descriptions, direction of travel, and license plate numbers of drivers who show signs of intoxication to the county Sheriff's office.



Even harder to beleive is that these "weekend warriors" may decide to follow drivers that they have a hunch about. While in persuit, the MADD observer, will maintain contact with dispatchers from the Sheriff's office relying on every minute of that 6 hour class they took back at the acadamy. The volunteers will work in pairs using their own cars and cell phones, monitoring the roads between peak DUI periods (around 10 pm to 2 am). Data from the 6 month pilot will be used for assessment purposes.

Manatee County Sheriff W. Brad Steube estimates that Florida drunk drivers will kill approximately 1,000 people this year. Although the volunteers have been instructed not to intervene or stop any vehicles suspected of DUI, the program raises some questions. Is it necessary? More importantly, volunteers can easily be described as "state actors" for legal purposes. Some are even referring to their being certified to participate int the program as "deputization". Of course, there is no legal basis for this and the participants will not actually be police officers. They will, however, be considered agents of the State. The following of automobiles and reporting them directly to law enforcement raises some significant constitutional issues. It can be anticipated with absolute certainty that at some point, that the participating members will cause some form of risk to traffic. The pilot Florida Observation program has been critisized widely, not only in Florida but across the nation as well. Recently, a radio station out of Los Angeles contacted our office in an effort to assist in answering the questions asked by west coast listeners. The overall opinions of the callers was that of disbelief and mockery. Calls subsequently flooded in from a concerned community.

"This Florida pilot program is the first in the country, so only time will tell", claims Fort Lauderdale criminal attorney, Andrew Alitowski. "I think that the qualified DUI lawyers in that jurisdiction will likely have a field day with cases arising from this 'so-called' operation.

It may very well be true that many general criminal defense firms may not recognize the numerous DUI defense issues that will be raised when the MADD arrests start pouring in". Our firm, William Moore, P.A. is located throughout South Florida and while we can't speak for Florida's northern states, it is our opinion that not all South Florida criminal defense firms are qualified to represent clients on Broward County DUI cases. In our area, general practitioners are more inclined to pass DUI cases along to one of the few Broward County DUI defense firms. This is because, DUI litigation is considered to be the most complex area of criminal defense. This is not to suggest that a DUI cases are always more complicated that all other offenses but "generally speaking" Driving Under the Influence charges, as a rule, leave an enormous amount of room for defense attorney error.

Litigating a DUI requires an intricate understanding of: double jeopardy, electronic surveillance, toxicology, accident reconstruction, administrative process, minimum sentences, engineering, search, seizure and even forfeiture. In fact, it is not all that uncommon to have every one of the aforementioned issues present in a particular case. "With the arrival of the MADD vigilantes and their -Observation Program-, we can expect that list to grow", commented Alitowski.