The Gated Community Loophole: Buckhead HOA Roads Arrests

Gated communities frequently provide residents of up-end neighborhoods in Buckhead, Sandy Springs, and Alpharetta with the safety and seclusion of an exclusive community. The main myth in such enclaves is that as soon as you go through the guardhouse, all the rules about proper traffic are dumped. It is a common assumption that people who drive a golf cart home after a couple of drinks having stopped at the local clubhouse or walk home and drive slowly through the main gate and up to their own driveway are out of the policemen’s range of detection. Nonetheless, the fact of the law in Georgia states that the police officers are able, and often, to make arrests because of driving under the influence in the private property. In the event that a false sense of safety results in a sudden criminal charge only a few yards in front of your front door it would be absolutely necessary to engage a highly skilled Atlanta DUI Lawyer to argue the jurisdictional authority of a criminal charge and save your record.

In order to see how an officer can conduct a traffic stop in a road that is strictly owned by a Homeowners Association, one has to consider the exact wording of the Georgia traffic code. Although most common traffic violations, including speeding or lack of a lane, are usually imposed in the main highways, the driving under the influence law in the state works the other way. The provisions regarding driving under the influence of intoxication under the O.C.G.A. Section 40-6-3 are applicable to the whole state including both the public and the privately owned property. Therefore, the gated community would be under conditions where a legally present police officer, maybe after a noise call, a domestic, or by invitation by the security agencies, would have the right to search and arrest any driver they think is under the influence of illegitimate chemicals, whether the street was paved by Tarmac or not.

Although this is a rather generalized exercise of power, the incident of arrest on private HOA road presents a highly technical and successful route to legal defence especially on the issue of chemical testing. Here is the complexity of the Implied Consent law in Georgia. The Implied Consent warning that an officer is to read before asking you to give a breath or blood sample expressly expresses that you must provide testing since you were driving on the highways or on the roads of the state. Where the arrest was made under a privately owned privately maintained road never opened to the public, through the knowledgeable presentation of pretrial motions by an Atlanta DUI Attorney, the Implied Consent law is not applicable to the driver in such a situation. Winning over this geographic subtleties can lead to blocking of the chemical test outcomes of the state, which will severely undermine the case of the prosecution.

In addition to the loopholes in the chemical tests, there are often intricate arguments on the legal interpretation of actual physical control in the case of arrest in the gated communities. Since people are not afraid that they will be robbed or beaten in their areas, they can leave their vehicle in the driveway, leave the engine running to tune the radio or with the air conditioner on, and get into sleep. The sleeping resident can be noticed by the officers patrolling or responding to a call and a DUI investigation can be started. Georgia does not require one to be actively driving before he/she can be arrested, all he/she has to do is to be in actual physical control of the vehicle. To challenge these targeted charges, one would need to prove that the driver was employing the vehicle to provide himself/herself a temporary shelter on his/her own private land and not proving that he/she was actually intending to drive on a road.

Winning a DUI case based on a charge that began on personal premises would entail an infallible search on local property records, HOA bylaws, and county plat maps. The defense should conclusively demonstrate that the roads in question are not subjected to the duties of county tax funds and that the community itself limits the access of people by gates or signs. Without being able to prove that the place where the accident occurred was a public highway so as to Implied Consent, the state is deprived of the strongest piece of scientific evidence. The drivers that may be the victims of such distinct jurisdictional charges should not think that a local arrest is an automatic guilty verdict. They have to focus on the intensive, minutious approach to law to take advantage of these loopholes of personal property and not to allow a local misconception to lead to a criminal record that remains forever and the driving privilege is denied.

The Gated Community Loophole: Buckhead HOA Roads Arrests

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