Criss & Rousseau Legal Issues Blog

Between May 15 and 19, over 100 people were arrested on a variety of charges at the Jeep "Go Topless" event in Crystal Beach, Texas. The charges included everything from resisting arrest to burglary.

According to the Galveston County Sheriff's Office, a total of 113 people were taken into custody at the annual car event, which takes its name from the removable top on Jeep Wranglers. While over a dozen people were arrested for drunk driving, most defendants were charged with misdemeanor offenses like being minor in possession of alcohol or driving without a seat belt.

An attorney in Texas got a man's DUI charge dismissed after he was able to demonstrate that the man was in ketosis from a low-carb diet at the time of the breath test. The man had performed normally during sobriety tests, but his blood alcohol content appeared to be above the legal limit when a breath test was done. However, ketosis can cause a person to blow out isopropyl alcohol, and some types of breath tests may not distinguish between this and ethanol alcohol.

The device most law enforcement agencies have at their stations, which uses infrared spectroscopy, can distinguish between the two types of alcohol. According to the attorney in Texas, the breath test devices that law enforcement generally carry in their cars, which use fuel cell technology, have never been demonstrated in a peer-reviewed study to distinguish between the two types of alcohol. Furthermore, a professor of forensic technology wrote a paper about a man who was on a low-carb diet who was unable to start his company's vehicle, which required a breath test. That device also used fuel cells. However, manufacturers say that their devices are accurate.

Many drivers in Texas and around the country are so focused on their smartphones that they refuse to put the devices down even when they see a police car according to the results of a study released by an auto insurance company. Root Insurance, which offers its customers a 10 percent discount if they agree not to use their phones while behind the wheel, commissioned a Virginia-based market research company to conduct the distracted driving survey.

An alarming 38 percent of the motorists surveyed said that a law enforcement vehicle did not deter them from using their cellphones despite laws banning the practice. The results of the study suggest that American drivers spend about 13 minutes every day looking at smartphone screens instead of watching the road. More than half of the respondents admitted to using the devices to engage in email or text message conversations with multiple people.

Many hospitalized patients in Texas and across the U.S. die from diagnostic errors. In fact, the National Academy of Medicine stated in 2015 that these errors may be the third leading cause of death among such patients. Now, two separate reports have found that diagnosis-related allegations are behind most malpractice claims whether the patients are inpatient or outpatient.

The reports were issued by Coverys and The Doctors Company, two malpractice insurers. Coverys analyzed some 1,800 closed claims against physicians between 2013 and 2017, finding that 46 percent were diagnosis-related. Forty-five percent of the patients involved in these claims died. Sixty-eight percent of all indemnity costs paid out were due to these claims.