Nassau County police reported 25 DWI charges over one holiday stretch. The holidays are supposed to be a fun time of year, but the enforcement numbers climb sharply between Thanksgiving and New Year's, when checkpoints and extra patrols go up across Long Island. If you need a DWI or DUI lawyer in Nassau or Queens County, Jonathan Kaye can help you defend the charges. He can be reached at (516) 790-6618.
Each of the people below was charged, but not proven guilty in a court of law. The arrests were spread across Hempstead Turnpike, Long Beach Road, Glen Cove Road, the Long Island Expressway, and surface streets from Oceanside to East Meadow to Baldwin, a reminder of just how routine a holiday-season DWI stop can be, and how many of these cases are built on nothing more than an officer's roadside impressions.
What a holiday DWI roundup really tells you
Numbers like these get published to send a message, but they also make an important point that gets lost: a DWI arrest is the start of a case, not the end of one. Holiday checkpoints and saturation patrols produce a high volume of arrests quickly, and volume is exactly where roadside testing, paperwork, and the legal basis for a stop tend to be weakest. Many of these cases are defendable, and a first offense with no accident is often eligible for a reduction to DWAI.
If you were stopped at a Nassau checkpoint or pulled over on the Meadowbrook or the LIE, the first questions are whether the stop was lawful and whether the testing holds up. A Nassau County DWI lawyer who has worked both sides of these files can tell you where your case really stands.
This write-up is drawn from public news reports at the time and is preserved here for general information only. A charge is an accusation, not proof of guilt, and every person is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Nothing here predicts the outcome of any other case, and nothing here is legal advice.