When Do Police Perform Welfare Checks and What Are They Looking For?
The police can perform welfare checks if they noticed something unusual; usually an officer will get a call from 911 dispatch saying that someone was passed out or sleeping in a car, or perhaps a car was parked in the middle of the road. Police will respond to see what might be going on in case someone is sick or injured and needs help, hence the term “welfare check.” Welfare checks do happen; they may find a car parked in a parking lot late at night with no one around, or a car with the lights on but not moving, or they may find a car parked in the middle of the road; it may be any of dozens of possible situations that may fall under the community caretaker area of a police officer’s duties, which means they have the right to investigate in order to make sure the person in the car is okay.
Under What Circumstances Can Someone Sitting or Sleeping in a Parked Car Be Charged with DUI?
People sitting or sleeping in parked cars get charged with a form of DUI all the time, although it is not the same as driving under the influence. In order for someone to be charged with actual DUI in California, there has to be movement of the car, even if it is a slight movement, and there is no movement if someone is in a parked car. There may be some exceptions, such as if the person was parked in the middle of the road or they had been involved in an accident, but generally speaking, the person won’t be considered to be driving under the influence if they were parked in their driveway or in front of their house and they never drove the car.
These are very good cases to take to trial because people do sometimes just leave the house or leave a party and sit in the car, based on a decision that the safest thing to do is to not drive. Juries tend to understand this and they want to encourage people to be responsible and not drive when they are impaired. These cases are more difficult to defend if the car was found parked beside the freeway, although if the car was legally parked on a surface street, it would not be possible for a prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether or not the person had any alcohol in their system when they drove or even if they drove. Just because it was their car doesn’t mean they actually drove it there, even if they were sitting in the driver’s seat, and it would not be considered a DUI if the car was legally parked and nobody saw the car move and there was no accident.
Does Someone Have to Be in the Driver’s Seat to Be Charged with a DUI?
The person does not have to be in the driver’s seat to be charged with a DUI; it’s possible to be arrested for driving under the influence based on circumstantial evidence. Someone may be parked on the freeway miles from the nearest on-ramp and if they’re the owner of the car, even if they were sitting in the passenger’s seat, the car obviously didn’t get there by itself so police could arrest them based on that circumstantial evidence and the case will become another issue of whether it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the person drove and they were impaired when they did so.
Police can always make a DUI arrest, even if someone was in the backseat or passenger seat and the keys weren’t in the ignition; they just have to take the circumstantial evidence into consideration and establish probable cause. Police officers may also arrest multiple people for driving under the influence if there was a situation where the police officer pulled someone over and saw the driver and passenger switch seats. People may get stopped on the side of the road and, when the police officer asks who was driving, different people admit to it even if they were actually not driving, and the officer may arrest everyone in that situation. There are a lot of situations in which multiple people may get arrested for DUI, even if they are not in the driver’s seat.
Could Someone Still Be Charged with a DUI If They Don’t Have the Car Keys?
Someone may be charged with a DUI even if they did not have the car keys, because nowadays cars do not always need keys to be driven and because keys can sometimes get lost; this is especially true if there was an accident and the car was registered to them because, depending on the sophistication of the officer, they may be able to create an impressive amount of circumstantial evidence to show that the person standing by the car was, in fact, the one who was driving and they would use that to prove a DUI.
Having no keys may be a very good defense to driving under the influence and I have been able to get not-guilty verdicts in situations in which there were no keys to the car but it was my client’s car, he was in it and sleeping, and the prosecution was unable to prove that he drove it; without finding any keys, the jury did not believe that person was, in fact, driving the car.
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