Drennan Law Firm's Blog

There are many drinks out there that mix caffeine and alcohol. From coffee mixed with a shot of alcohol to Red Bull poured into a mixed drink, many people opt to have a little additional punch to the drink.

Mixing alcohol and caffeine is dangerous, though. Energy drinks, for example, have sugars, caffeine and other additives. Caffeine masks the depressant side effects of alcohol, making it harder for people to know how intoxicated they are. As a result, drinkers may think they're more alert or sober than they are, which results in poor decisions.

Understanding your rights under the law is important any time you find yourself interacting with law enforcement. While police may not overtly violate your rights, they often attempt to convince you to waive them. This can make the process of working with law enforcement during a traffic stop difficult. While you don't want to seem contentious or combative, you also don't want to waive your rights or get yourself into unnecessary trouble.

The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. That can mean you have the right to refuse a search of your home or your vehicle. During a traffic stop, that can also mean refusing to comply with law enforcement's request for a chemical test to look for alcohol. However, it is important to understand that while law enforcement cannot compel you to perform the test, refusing it will still have consequences.

You're young, but you are over the legal age to drink. You decide to go out with coworkers and have a night on the town. In your mind, there's little that could go wrong, but that's where you've made a mistake.

While you expected to feel intoxicated after a while, you didn't think you'd be in an intoxicated state while driving home. It was such a short distance, you thought to yourself that you'd be able to get home just fine. The trouble is that you weren't right, and an officer saw you narrowly avoid getting into an accident.

DUI charges are very common, but that doesn't mean they are charges to take lightly. In fact, DUI charges in South Carolina can result in surprisingly severe punishment, even for first-time offenders. If you face DUI charges, dealing with them fully should make the top of your list of priorities.

This can prove quite challenging, depending on the nature of the evidence that the prosecution has against you. In many cases, the charges arise after a driver fails a Breathalyzer test, which can seem like an infallible piece of evidence to overcome. While it is true that Breathalyzers do carry great weight in the courts, they are by no means flawless measurement devices.