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On August 26, 2015, Public Act 099-0467, eliminating statutory hard times, was signed into law by Governor Rauner. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. John D’Amico and will become effective January 1, 2016.

The legislation eliminates all ‘hard times’ under current law. Simply put, these are statutory periods during which a driver could not obtain relief from certain periods of a statutory summary suspension (‘SSS’) or DUI revocation. This includes:

1. First offender SSS – Drivers will be eligible for a Monitored Device Driving Permit (MDDP) from day 1 of the suspension (currently cannot obtain a permit until the 31st day of the SSS);

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A Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that federally backed DUI patrols and sobriety checkpoints in Illinois usually result in ticketing drivers for minor infractions rather than drunk driving. Of the 270,000 citations issued across the state through these patrols, 93% were for less serious offenses than DUI. Records from 2008 to 2013 reveal that ten police agencies throughout the state accounted for more than half of the citations issued by these patrols. These agencies include Chicago, Skokie, Elgin, Will County, Waukegan and Illinois State Police.

The Skokie Police Department logged 14,000 citations through their drunk driving patrols, but only about 3% of the citations were for DUI. The Elgin Police Department issued around the same number of citations, but arrested more than twice as many drunk drivers as Skokie. About 7% of Will County’s citations through these patrols were for DUI and about 11 percent of Waukegan police’s citations were for DUI.

Last year, a Des Plaines commander padded the number of DUI arrests made by his department in an effort to collect federal grant money. At his sentencing hearing, his attorney spoke of the pressure the commander was under in meeting the department’s quotas.

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An electronic insurance verification program may soon be implemented in Illinois. This program will make it much easier for officers to catch those driving without car insurance. In 2014, the Illinois legislature established a committee to design the program, which will likely include a computer database that would be accessible to law enforcement during traffic stops. The system would allow officers to ensure you are up to date on your monthly insurance payments. Often, individuals make a down payment on their insurance, receive their insurance card, and do not follow up on monthly payments, allowing their coverage to lapse while retaining the card showing that they are insured. As of now, in order to ensure you are currently covered by insurance, officers must call the insurance company.

It is expected that the Secretary of State will adopt the rules for the program by 2016. The agency has estimated that of the 9 million licensed drivers in Illinois, 6% are uninsured.

Michigan has recently adopted a similar program, allowing police to access information on whether a vehicle is insured by running the license plate through their computer. Michigan insurance companies are required to transmit policy information twice a month, so the information provided to officers is reasonably accurate.

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For the last several years, Larry Davis has been engaged in negotiations on behalf of the Illinois State Bar Association (‘ISBA’) and the Illinois Lawyers and Substance Abuse Counselors Association (‘ILSACA’) with the Office of the Secretary of State (‘SOS’) regarding several proposed changes to the Illinois driver licensing laws as well changes in the Illinois DUI laws with other interested parties.

We are pleased to advise you that the SOS Traffic Safety Advisory Committee has voted to approve many these proposals. The accepted proposals include the following:

Elimination of all ‘hard times’ under current law. Simply put, these are statutory periods during which a driver could not obtain relief during certain periods of a statutory summary suspension (‘SSS’) or revocation. These include:

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A federal lawsuit filed on Monday on behalf of six African-American men contends that the Chicago Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy has violated their constitutional rights. The lawsuit alleges “suspicionless” street stops led to unlawful searches and seizures as well as the use of excessive force by the police department. The suit is seeking class-action status, alleging that the constitutional rights of mostly African-Americans have been violated. The named defendants are the Chicago Police Department, superintendent Garry McCarthy as well as 14 unnamed police officers.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio permits police to make a stop when there is reasonable suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime and there is a reasonable belief that the individual is armed and imminently dangerous. In these cases, a brief patdown of the individual’s outer clothing in search for weapons is permitted.

Gregory Davis, 58, is a plaintiff in the case. He alleges that in July 2014, he was waiting in his vehicle for a family member to come out of Walgreens when officers asked him why he was sitting there and demanded his driver’s license and insurance information. The allegations further state after looking into his vehicle, the officers allowed him to return to his home without issuing a citation. Davis was stopped again three months later as he drove through an alley in his neighborhood. He alleges that there was no probable cause for the stop and officers took his license and registration, making him wait 20 minutes while they ran his information. Again, there was no charges or citations issued.

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Orangelo Payne, 35, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the FBI, Chicago police, the Cook County probation department, an FBI agent as well as individual police and probation officers. He alleges that while he was on probation for a drug offense in 2013, his home was illegally searched by an FBI agent and probation officers, who found an antique shotgun. This led to 16 months in jail for Payne, before the gun charges were eventually dropped.

The lawsuit alleges that there were improper partnerships between probation officers and law enforcement agencies. Payne alleges that the probation department did not investigate or discipline these probation officers, thereby encouraging misconduct.

Less than a year ago, the Tribune ran a story alleging that the probation department’s gang unit improperly worked with the FBI and other agencies to conduct warrantless and possibly illegal searches. The former Deputy Chief of the gang unit is one of the defendants in Payne’s case.

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An Aurora man was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after allegedly threatening to fight a customer in the McDonald’s drive-thru line.

Just after midnight on Monday, Aurora police were called to a home after reports that someone was playing music too loudly in a maroon Jeep. When police arrived, they found Daniel Garibay sitting in the vehicle. Police reports indicate that Garibay appeared to be drunk and that officers warned him not to drive. Officers then left the residence and believed the incident to be over.

However, about an hour later, a McDonald’s employee called police, stating that someone in a maroon Jeep was being disruptive in the drive-thru line. The same officers that had responded to the earlier call arrived at McDonalds and quickly realized that this was the same man they had earlier warned not to drive. Besides threatening to fight another customer, the restaurant manager stated that she believed Garibay to be drunk after he seemed confused and had trouble speaking when ordering.

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Angel Gonzalez, of Waukegan, spent 20 years behind bars before being formally exonerated of rape and abduction charges on Monday. The basis of the exoneration was DNA. While bodily fluids implicate two different men in the crime, neither DNA sample matched that of Gonzalez.

Gonzalez appeared in a Lake County courtroom, shackled at the ankles, as Judge Victoria Rossetti vacated the conviction. While the excitement was evident, Gonzalez was then sent back to prison for a 1997 charge of criminal damage to property for allegedly damaging a sink while in solitary confinement.

On Tuesday, Gonzalez’s attorneys asked a Livingston County judge to vacate the charge because there was no interpreter present when Gonzalez, who speaks little English, pled guilty. Judge Jennifer Bauknecht agreed to vacate the conviction and the prosecutors then agreed to drop the charges.

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A Tribune investigation revealed that the driver’s licenses of thousands of drunk drivers have not been suspended because the arrests of these drivers are not being logged into state computers. While state officials blame the police for failing to send their reports to the Illinois Secretary of State, the police departments say that they put all necessary paperwork in the mail. While the root of the problem is relatively unclear, the Tribune noted that the mistakes appear to be widespread. In fact, since 2010, more than 3,000 Chicago area drivers’ arrests were not logged and as many as one in 15 DUI defendants do not have suspended licenses in DuPage County.

Police in other states are permitted to log arrests electronically, making the process more efficient and reliable. However, Illinois has not yet made this change and does not expect to for at least a year or likely longer.

In Illinois, the suspension process begins with paper forms that the officers fill out by hand which are mailed to a state office building in Springfield. The state workers then enter the information into the computer, which requires deciphering the officers’ handwriting. There are many opportunities for mistakes to occur, such as the use of improper forms, forms getting lost in the mail or in Springfield and illegible handwriting.

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According to the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (“AAIM”), a non-profit citizens action group that has tracked Illinois DUI arrests since 1982, Lake County made the most DUI arrests in the state in 2013. The 233 officers averaged 1.49 arrests per officer, bringing the total number of arrests to 348. Right behind Lake County was Cook County. However, Cook County has more officers in their force. The statistics state that Cook County’s 487 officers made 306 arrests, which is an average of .63 arrests per officer.

AAIM determined that the Chicago Police Department, with roughly 12,000 officers, made approximately 3,400 DUI arrests. The rate of .28 arrests per officer pales in comparison to Lake County.

DUI fatalities in Illinois were down 38% from the last decade. However, the seemingly sharp decline in drunk driving may be due to the lack of arrests by some police departments. Although there is a decrease in DUI fatalities, drunk driving is still a major problem in the United States. One person was killed every 52 minutes due to DUI-related accidents in 2013 across the country.

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