Broward DUI Lawyer Blog

Carlos A. Canet frequently updates citizens informed of changes to Florida DUI laws and procedures. Florida legislature has begun efforts to increase the severity and punishments for Florida criminal traffic offenses, such as DUI, that were formerly considered misdemeanors. Florida penalties for fleeing and eluding, DUI, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident and racing on the highway are under evaluation, with some changes already in effect unbeknownst to most Florida residents.

Fleeing and eluding a police officer was once punishable by a year in county jail and was rarely imposed. Instead of jail time, defendants were most often punished with community service, an apology letter to the officer and probation. Dramatically, the offense of fleeing and eluding a police officer is now punished as a third-degree felony, carrying a potential five-year state prison sentence, a $5000.00 fine, a record as a convicted felon and a two-year license suspension.

The updated reckless driving charges indicate that an alleged incident of reckless driving including serious bodily injury is charged as a third degree felony. In the event a death results, the offense is charged as vehicular homicide, which is second-degree felony.

Racing on the highway remains a first-degree misdemeanor with a new twist. There is now an automatic one-year revocation of the driver's license for a first offense, and two-year revocation for a second offense.
Still a first-degree misdemeanor, leaving the scene of an accident becomes a third-degree felony in the event of a serious injury; a second-degree felony should a death result.

Florida DUI defense lawyer Carlos Canet began his mission to obtain the computer source code that controls the operation of the Intoxilyzer 8000 in 2005. A series of infrared light filters in the Intoxilyzer create a ratio of infrared light absorption intensity that is then translated by the machine, yielding results. The machine is an intricate and delicate system, with each part dependent on the others.

Armed with the knowledge that CMI uses inferior products during the production process of the breath-testing machine, Mr. Canet confronted the problems, which includes sub-standard infrared light filters that result in sloppy measurement standards that fail to exclude other volatile organic chemical compounds in the breath. Due to poor standards of quality, these other compounds can create a false-positive reading as alcohol, a problematic misreading.
There has been much attention and controversy generated toward the process of obtaining breathalyzer results with the Intoxilyzer 8000 machine.

CMI, Inc., the company that manufacturers the Intoxilyzer has been taken to court due to issues regarding the disclosure of the "source code," that controls the operation of the device. The State of Florida has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the Intoxilyzer 8000 breath-testing machine.

For over a decade, South Florida DUI defense attorney Carlos A. Canet has been invited to speak at legal seminars and provide his valuable input in legal publications. Over the years Mr. Canet has discussed issues related to breath testing in the state of Florida, and went as far as to reveal some of his most effective methods for discrediting breath test results.

Mr. Canet has achieved an impressive level of success in South Florida DUI defense, excluding the breath test results of hundreds of clients. The South Florida DUI defense expert explained that he had accomplished the exclusions through highly specialized techniques that can be applied to both individual cases and groups of cases.

Mr. Canet has been the driving force behind his practice, the Law Office of Carlos A. Canet, P.A. With over 25 years of experience defending Florida DUI and Criminal charges, Mr. Canet now devotes himself exclusively to the defense of criminal cases.

Mr. Canet represents those accused of serious criminal offenses and traffic offenses, such as Felony DUI, DUI Manslaughter, Fleeing and Eluding, Leaving the Scene of an Accident, Racing on the Highway and more. Through his continued educational endeavors in public speaking and writing for publications, Mr. Canet displays the great sense of pride and satisfaction representing the accused successfully has awarded him.

To assist in the never-ending search for stolen vehicles and criminals on our roadways, South Florida police have begun to use license plate scanners. Mounted on the hood, roof, or trunk of police cruisers, the cameras have the capacity to scan and search approximately 10,000 license plates per shift for each officer equipped with the technology.

The license plate scanner takes pictures as the officer makes their rounds. The Hollywood Police Department traffic unit recovered a stolen car, a stolen tag and made two arrests within weeks of implementing the technology.

The technology has its advantages, and example being to track sex offenders. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has been using the license plate scanners to track sex offenders and gang members since 2007. The Broward County Sheriff's Office uses 35 license plate recognition systems, some mounted on cars and some stationary-scanning approximately 300,000 license plates monthly.

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