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Halloween 'no-refusal' effort nets 7 DUI arrests in Kane

Seven people were charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in a “no-refusal” enforcement patrol conducted Oct. 29 and 30 in Carpentersville, East Dundee, Elgin, South Elgin and West Dundee. Police officers from those departments and the Illinois State Police participated.

The results pleased Kane County State's Attorney Joseph McMahon, who announced them Tuesday.

It met one of his goals for the action: “to ensure the (Halloween) weekend was safe for families and members of the community to enjoy the weekend,” he said.

With a “no-refusal” enforcement, McMahon's office arranges to have an assistant state's attorney available to ask a judge for a search warrant to obtain a blood sample from the suspect if the suspect does not agree to give one.

Of the seven arrested, two initially refused to give a sample. One acquiesced when informed the prosecutor was going to get a search warrant, and the second gave in after a search warrant was obtained.

A phlebotomist was present with the prosecutor, in case a suspect refused to comply with the warrant. That hasn't happened yet during no-refusal weekends. This was the seventh to be conducted in Kane County. At the first in May 2008, a suspect refused to comply, and was charged with contempt of court. A judge dismissed that charge as improper, and the person pleaded guilty to the DUI. Now, the prosecutors could charge people with obstruction of justice.

Of the 54 motorists charged with DUI on no-refusal campaigns, 42 have pleaded guilty. The others are still being adjudicated.

The people arrested from 11 p.m. Oct. 28 to 3 a.m. Oct. 29, and 11 p.m. Oct. 29 to 3 a.m. Oct. 30, had blood-alcohol levels ranging from 0.05 to 0.21 percent. Even though 0.05 is below Illinois' legal standard of 0.08 for intoxication, 0.08 is not required for the charge.

The officer could make the charge based on other signs of impaired driving, including failing field sobriety tests, McMahon said.

And the blood-alcohol concentration is what is recorded at the time the test is performed, which means the blood alcohol concentration could have been higher at the time of arrest.

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