Trying to figure out what that title could possibly have to do with law?  Hard for me too, but title comes from a recommendation to me for a restaurant in Sydney, Australia.  My wife and I were travelling in Australia and made the mistake of taking the advice of a complete stranger on a place to eat when we had limited nights in Sydney.  Big mistake.  Lot of people stepping and fetching, but the food was poorly prepared and poorly served.  It is not a restaurant that I will forget soon.  I regret more not visiting a famous restaurant there accessible by hydrofoil water taxi.  Anyway, it was seven doors to nowhere.

I use this title because I analyze potential driving while impaired cases under a formula called the three door approach.  There is nothing to do with a restaurant in this approach.  The best thing about three doors or TD as I prefer to call it is that the state has to get their case successfully through all three doors.  If you or your attorney manage to shut one of the three doors, the the defense prevails and you win.  Let's look at TD.

The first door concern the way in which you came to the attention of a law enforcement officer or LEO.  It could be a roadblock, a license check, weaving in the road, speeding or even a collision.  Really unlucky people may have even have been reported by a boyfriend or girlfriend or another motorist.  The first door  can be summarized as "why did they stop you?"  It does include contact between an leo and a motorist where the motorist has stopped voluntarily, such as at a rest area or a convenience store, or a nightclub.  It does not have to involve a blue light stop or roadblock.

What we want to know at the first door is whether the leo had "reasonable articulable suspicion" for stopping you and detaining you.  That can be defined as what would make a reasonable law enforcement officer suspicious that a motorist had committed an "implied consent" offense.  That phrase includes dwi, underage consumption of alcohol and having it remaining in your body while operating a motor vehicle.  A motorist is deemed to have consented to a reasonable inquiry of their fitness to drive a car or truck, where the consumption  of alcohol is involved.  That phrase comes back to haunt some people who do not agree, in some circumstances, to provide a breath sample or blood sample upon reasonable request.  That refusal can lead to suspension of driving privileges for one year, but that is the subject of another blog article in the future.

When a motorist comes into contact with an leo in a moving situation, a judge will first analyze whether the stop and detention was done because the leo could reasonably articulate or describe what made the officer suspect an implied consent offense.  Hunches won't work.  Driving through a sleepy college town at three in the moring is not enough, even though sometimes seems as if it were, when you look at the evidence.  Clients tell me that they suspect the leo ran out of doughnuts early in the morning and had nothing better to do so the leo played a hunch.  Getting the officer to admit it is much more difficult tha thinking that it happened.  However, recent cases have reined in leo's.  Weaving in your own lane is not enough any more, if that is all there is.  Sitting through a red light or not starting up from a red light immediately is not always enough to constitute RAS or reasonable articulable suspicion.  That suspicion does not have to rise to the level of what is called probable cause, which is probable cause that a crime is being committed or has been committed.  N.C.  law now requires an accused to move to suppress the physical evidence of the arrest, detention, and alcohol sample ahead of trial. That give the district attorney notice that this case is different from the others.  Generally, an attorney files such a motion to suppress all physical evidence based on lack of RAS for the stop, a lack of probable cause for the ensuing arrest, or a contention that the alcohol testing was not done in accordance with state regulations and statutes.

If a judge rules that the leo had RAS, the inquiry moves to probable cause.  A much tougher standard for the officer to meet is this.  If the officer relies on SRST's or standardized roadside sobriety tests, the leo has to show that he or she was trained properly in the testing procedures, conducted them properly, and correctly interpreted them.  A blog article could consume ten pages about the tests and how courts interpret the results of properly conducted testing.  They also include asking for and receiving a breath sample through the use of a PBT machine or preliminary breathy testing device.  There are pages of regulations that govern the situations in which the pbt may be used, how to conduct the use of the pbt and how the court can interpret the results.  Cases are decided every week in the appellate courts of N.C. about the proper use of the pbt.  If the judge rules that the officer had probable cause for the arrest, then the inquiry moves to evidence of intoxication including breath sampling.

Breath sampling can be done on the scene if the proper machine, certified by the state, is present at the site of the arrest as in Booze it and lose it stations around the state in which a small bus which has a breath testing machine is parked at the scene of a roadblock.  Regulations require that a motorist be warned of the rights and ramifications of breath testing.  Violation of the regulations can result in the judge refusing to allow the breath testing or blood testing results to come into evidence.  In that and other cases, the state can rely on proof that the actions of the motorist obviously show impairment of physical or mental facullties to an appreciable amount.  Hundreds of ways to show that including videotapes of the accused in custody staggering around the breath testing room, or being belligerent. 

Lots of defenses arise from breath testing.  The accused has the right to have a witness view the testing procedures.  Making it difficult for witnesses to get into the jail to see the test violates the statutes and can lead a judge to dismiss the charges.  That arises because an accused has the right to have access to a witness to the procedures or shortly thereafter to contest assertions that a person acted in an impaired fashion.  Violations of witness accessibility call for outright dismissal of the charges and they still happen.  Keepiong a Spanish speaking person in the jailhouse after the testing is done and the magistrate has authorized release from custody, even if done for the purpose of checking to see if the motorist has immigration papers, violates the law and has resulted in dismissal of all charges.  The N.C. Supreme court has reaffirmed that the only appropriate remedy for such a violation of witness accessibility is acquittal.

If the state gets through all three doors, a judge can still acquit but it doesn't happen often.  If a motorist had ten witnesses that he appeared completely sober to them, a judge could find that he doesn't trust a machine that costs less than one third of a Coke vending machine to always get it right.  The Coke vending machine doesn't always get it right, and it costs two thousand dollars.  Hopefully this explanation of the three doors will prove helpful to persons who are accused of an implied consent offense or even to those who are simply curious about what happens.  Feel free to contact me if you have interesting anecdotes or questions about this topic or others.  Feel free to suggest a topic for future blog articles.  Thanks for reading.  Clay