Randy Babbitt, the chief of the Federal Aviation Administration, has resigned after he was arrested for DUI last week. Barrett was arrested in Fairfax, Virginia. Police pulled him over after they noticed him driving erratically. He was arrested, and charged with driving under the influence. It is the 2nd DUI offense for the ex-FAA chief in the last 5 years.

Babbitt has had an impressive career as an aviation safety chief since taking over the Federal Aviation Administration. However, that does not seem to have had any impact on the consequences of his DUI. The Department of Transportation has been focusing heavily on reducing the number of accidents caused by drunk driving. Babbitt's DUI arrest was undoubtedly an embarrassment to the Department of Transportation, and the resignation was, very likely, welcomed.

According to media reports, Babbitt did not inform Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood or the White House about his DUI arrest. Both the Obama administration and the Department of Transportation found out about the arrest through a police press release like the rest of us, which didn't make Babbitt look very good. Sec. LaHood found out about the arrest more than 36 hours after it happened, and has discussed his disappointment with this fact.

Not everybody is required to resign his or her job after being arrested for DUI. However, San José DUI attorneys find the case to be very different when lawmakers and public officials are involved in a DUI. It's even trickier in the case of a high-ranking transportation official like Babbitt, even though his job did not involve actual operation of a vehicle. In this case, Babbitt's impressive record with aviation safety reform, and his efforts to tackle a variety of problems including pilot and air traffic controller fatigue, has meant little.

A cheerleader coach in San Jose has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation of a 14-year-old boy. The 23-year-old coach was arrested recently.

According to the San Jose Police Department, the man was a cheerleader coach at the Andrew Hill High School, and also coached for Energy Athletics in San Jose. There is no information at this point in time, that any other children were also abused or molested. The coach has no previous record of sex crimes, and seems to have had a good record as a coach.

Unfortunately, when a person is accused of child sex abuse or child molestation, a prior clean record does not matter. Any San Jose criminal defense lawyer will tell you that child sex abuse crimes are some of the most aggressively prosecuted crimes in California. Prosecutors, police departments, detectives and social workers can be expected to make exhaustive efforts to make charges against the defendant stick.

Unfortunately, it's not that difficult to influence a child to make misleading statements about the behavior of an adult. Detectives may ask the child suggestive questions that are intended to influence the child’s answers. Very often, those answers point to criminal conduct.

Penalties after a sex crime conviction include not just a prison sentence, but also a lifelong registration in a federal sex offender registry. Sex offender registration means that future employers, personal acquaintances, spouses and neighbors will be aware of your sex crime conviction at the click of a mouse. As a convicted sex offender, you will be required to notify authorities every time you change residence after you have been released from prison. In fact, sex crimes belong to a rare category of crimes in which the punishment for the victim continues over the rest of the person’s life.

Prosecutors in a string of incidents involving teenagers, who were caught with sexually explicit images on their cell phones, have painted the phenomenon of sexting, as an epidemic among teenagers. That's far from the truth. According to a new study by the University of Hampshire Crimes against Children Research Center, sexting, or the sending and receiving of sexually explicit content via cell phones is much less common than prosecutors would have you believe.

In fact, the number of teenagers in the survey, who admitted to sending or receiving sexually explicit material via cell phone, was just about one teenager in 100. The results of the study, which have been published in the Pediatrics journal, confirm to San Jose criminal defense lawyers that the practice is not as widespread as parents fear. The study involved 1,560 children aged between 10 and 17. It found that older teens were much more likely to send and receive sexual images on their cell phones. While teenagers may take nude or semi nude images of themselves on their cell phones, only 10% of them admitted to actually sending these images to others. Only 3% of the teens who received sexually explicit images on their cell phones forwarded these images. About 20% of the teenagers who received or made sexually explicit images, reported them to adults. Overall, just 1% of the images that were transmitted via cell phone, actually violated child pornography laws. Fortunately, the study also finds that in most cases, law-enforcement officials treat these cases with the tact they deserve, instead of rushing to file charges.

Several high-profile incidents involving sexting have been spotlighted in the media over the past couple of years. In these cases, teenagers, who had nude or semi nude pictures of themselves or other teens on their cell phones, were threatened with charges of possession of child pornography. In most of these cases, it was ultimately found that the images were created without any intention to harm, or were experimental in nature.

The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 dramatically reduced the disparity between sentences for selling of crack cocaine versus those for powder cocaine. Before the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 was passed, a person convicted of selling crack cocaine was subjected to a sentence that was the same as the sentence for selling an amount of powder cocaine that was hundred times as much. That disparity was reduced to 18 to 1 by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which went into effect on August 3, 2010. However, the question about whether the law applied to those individuals who had been convicted but not sentenced before August 3, remained unanswered.

San José criminal defense lawyers expect an answer to that question soon. The Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision on the matter. Typically, Congress is expected to decide whether a new law should apply retroactively, but in this case, Congress has chosen to remain silent.

The Supreme Court decision will come in a case involving 2 men who had been convicted of crack cocaine offenses, before the Fair Sentencing Act went into effect in August. However, the 2 men had not been sentenced at the time the new rule went into effect. They argue that they are eligible for shorter sentences under the Fair Sentencing Act, and that it is unfair for them to be sentenced under the old law, after the new rule came into effect.

Lower courts have sided against the defendants, and the Justice Department defended a harsher sentence for these crack cocaine offenses under the old law. The Supreme Court ruling is expected in the next couple of months.

Any San Jose DUI lawyer will tell you that there has been an increase in the number of women being pulled over and arrested for DUI in the state over the last few years. A new study confirms this fact. According to data by Traffic Injury Research Prevention, over the past decade, there has been an increase of 36% in the number of women arrested for DUI nationwide. The research also presents a profile of the average female DUI arrest in the United States. The average female driver arrested for drunk driving in the country is educated, has a job and is the primary caregiver for her children.

The results of the study are intriguing, especially since it seems to delve into the role of parenting stresses on female DUI. The study was inspired by a fatal DUI–related accident in New York in 2009, in which a mother driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, drove the wrong way on a highway, and crashed her car into another vehicle. She was driving with 4 children in her car. That accident triggered plenty of debate about the growing number of mothers, who may think nothing of driving with their children after having a couple of drinks. Even a few drinks could show up on a breath test, if you are pulled over by an officer.

Additionally, San Jose DUI lawyers must warn that in California, having a child in the car when you're driving under the influence can make you eligible for a penalty enhancement. Any person, male or female, who is arrested for DUI, and has a child below the age of 14 in the vehicle, can also be sentenced for child endangerment. That could mean additional jail time.