driver of cmv blew .046

transp code shows this is a 1 year DL suspension.

Is there also a criminal charge? I cant find a statute for it.

Thank you

Jeff Actkinson
Parmer County Attorney

No. There is no criminal offense. This is strictly civil.

Janette Ansolabehere
DPS

Thank you very much.

My officer was trying to file a DWI and I was losing my mind trying to find something that wasn't there.

A commercial motor vehicle driver who violates Chapter 522, Transportation Code, by either refusing an officer's request for a breath, blood, or urine sample based on the officer's reasonable belief that the driver has a detectable amount of ethyl alcohol in his or her system does not require an arrest or even a suspicion that the person is intoxicated as defined in Penal Code 49.04. Motor carrier law is tied in tightly with federal law as a highly regulated industry. However, theoretically, your officer might believe that even at a.046 the person had lost the normal use of his mental or physical faculties. I am an assistant GC with DPS, not a prosecutor although my primary specialty is criminal law, particularly DWI. However, I think that it would be tough to convince a jury that the driver was legally intoxicated unless there was other evidence such as poor performance on the field sobriety tests, etc. Also, increasingly, drivers may be intoxicated but have only a low level of alcohol in the blood. It's the drugs combined with that alcohol that render them intoxicated.