AI workflows for revenue teams
Placeholder house ad for Conservus.ai. Swap with final creative when brand assets are ready.
Partner with Conservus.aiLatest Cases & Updates
Rights explainers, case coverage, and defense-oriented reporting.
'They Catch Everybody': A New National Investigation Says Roadside Sobriety Tests Fail Sober Drivers, and Courts Are Listening
A multi-year, 22-state investigation and a 2023 randomized trial reach the same uncomfortable conclusion: roadside sobriety tests are good enough to justify an arrest but too unreliable to prove impairment in court. Here is what the tests measure, why sober people fail, and how defense lawyers are fighting the results.
Pennsylvania Just Invented a New DUI Crime That Turns Your Old ARD Into a Prior Offense
A 2025 win for Pennsylvania DUI defendants lasted less than seven months. After the state Supreme Court ruled in Commonwealth v. Shifflett that a prior ARD acceptance could not be used to enhance a DUI sentence, lawmakers responded with Act 58 of 2025, creating a brand-new offense at 75 Pa.C.S. 3802(h) that charges a fresh DUI as a second offense if you completed ARD within the past 10 years.
The .05 Blood-Alcohol Line Is Spreading: Washington Eyed a July Cutover, and Utah Is No Longer the Only Bill on the Table
Washington's Senate voted to drop the DUI threshold from .08 to .05 before the 2026 bill died in the House. Utah still stands alone in enforcement, but a growing list of states is pushing the same number. Here is what a .05 limit actually means for drivers and their defense.
Half of Sober Drivers Fail the Roadside Marijuana Test: Why Courts Are Starting to Throw Out Cannabis DUI Field Evidence
A UC San Diego clinical trial found trained officers rated nearly half of sober placebo participants as impaired on roadside sobriety tests. Defense attorneys are now using that number to challenge cannabis DUI arrests.
Two DUIs and You Lose Your Guns: Washington's Top Court Upholds Recidivist Disarmament Law 5-4 in McLellan v. Brown
In a 5-4 decision, the Washington Supreme Court upheld RCW 9.41.040, which bars firearm possession for people with two or more DUI-type convictions within seven years. The court held the state can categorically disarm repeat DUI offenders without any individualized finding of dangerousness. A four-justice dissent called it preemptive disarmament.
Your First DUI Now Means an In-Car Breathalyzer in 34 States: The 2026 Interlock Expansion (and Washington's New 15-Year Lookback)
For most of the country, a first DUI conviction now points toward an ignition interlock device rather than a flat license suspension. Here is what is actually mandatory, what California's 2026 law really changed, and why Washington's new 15-year lookback targets repeat offenders, not first-timers.
Karen Read Walked on Murder but Lost on DUI: Why the Conviction That Stuck Just Quietly Expired
A Massachusetts jury cleared Karen Read of murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene. The only count that stuck was a misdemeanor OUI, and its one-year probation term quietly ran out on June 18, 2026. Here is why the charge nobody remembers is the one that mattered.
Refusing a Breathalyzer Is Now Its Own Crime in Florida, First Offense Included: Trenton's Law and the Suppression Fight Already Brewing
As of October 1, 2025, refusing a breath or urine test after a Florida DUI arrest is a crime on the very first offense, not just an administrative license matter. Here is what Trenton's Law changed and the three suppression arguments defense attorneys are already raising in 2026.
Your 2027 Car May Refuse to Start If It Decides You're Drunk. NHTSA Just Admitted No System Actually Works Yet
Federal law tells NHTSA to mandate built-in impairment detection in new cars. In a 2026 report to Congress, the agency conceded no production technology can reliably do it. For DUI defendants, the bigger question is what happens to the data when one of these sensors logs a reading.
Case v. Montana Hands Police a New Way Into Your Home Without a Warrant or Probable Cause
On January 14, 2026, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that police can enter a home without a warrant under the emergency-aid exception based only on an objectively reasonable belief that someone inside is seriously hurt or in danger. Probable cause is not required. Here is what the decision says, why defense lawyers fear it for DUI and welfare-check cases, and how to challenge an entry dressed up as a rescue.
Smith v. Arizona Is Killing DUI Blood Tests: Why Surrogate Lab Analyst Testimony Is Getting Suppressed in 2026
The Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in Smith v. Arizona closed a Confrontation Clause loophole that prosecutors had used for over a decade to introduce blood-alcohol results without the analyst who ran the test. Two years on, the fallout is reshaping DUI suppression practice.
Lange v. California Is Finally Killing Warrantless Home Entry for DUI: Why Misdemeanor Hot-Pursuit Suppressions Are Surging in 2026
Five years after the Supreme Court rejected categorical hot-pursuit entry for misdemeanors, state high courts are finally applying the rule. Pennsylvania's 2025 Hunte decision shows where DUI suppression motions are winning, and how bodycam timestamps have become the decisive evidence.
Field Sobriety Tests Were Never Validated for Cannabis: Why DRE Officer Testimony Is Getting Tossed in 2026
The 12-step Drug Recognition Expert protocol was built for poly-drug roadside triage in the 1970s and 80s and never validated against a cannabis impairment threshold. NHTSA admits it in writing. State v. Moore, Williams v. State, and the April 2026 DOJ rescheduling order give the defense bar a deep Rule 702 playbook for attacking cannabis DUI cases in 2026.
Roadside Cannabis Testing Has No Legal Limit: Why DUI-D Cases Are Falling Apart After the Schedule III Move
After the DEA's April 2026 rescheduling of FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III, defense lawyers are dismantling DUI-drug prosecutions built on per se nanogram thresholds, roadside oral-fluid screeners, and DRE testimony that cannot distinguish week-old metabolites from active impairment.