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Atlanta has strongly positioned itself as being the Hollywood of the South as it has developed a film and television production industry worth billions of dollars which has employed thousands of actors, film directors, camera operators and other transportation crews. The flawless appearance in the public and an unhindered driving license are usually a tough issue in the job of a set worker. When a worker in the entertainment industry is pulled over and arrested due to driving under the influence following a late-night wrap party or a weekend off, the consequences are in a whole new level beyond the usual courtroom punishments. One accident on the road may cause disastrous contractual and union related implications to terminate an otherwise prosperous film career in one instant. The overlap between the state criminal statutes and rigid controls of the entertainment industry is such a tangle that the direct hiring of an expert Atlanta DUI Lawyer is quite necessary to any production industry employee charged.
In the case of actors, regardless of whether they are members of SAG-AFTRA or are non-union actors, the main danger after being arrested due to alcohol consumption is in the small print of their employment agreements. Most of the large studios and production firms have an agreement containing rigid morals clauses. These provisions give the studio the unilateral authority to cancel the contract of an actor in case he or she commits an act that generates a scandal or an action that causes them to fall under the public disgrace or just casts a dark shadow on the show. A high-profile DUI arrest, or even a low profile arrest that happened during a standard background check conducted by the insurance company of the studio is often mentioned as a direct breach of these morals clauses. Since studios are under heavy financial obligations and heavily constrained insurance reflects to towards covering their casts, an actor with the pending case of crime is an unacceptable financial liability, resulting in recast roles, and canceled endorsement.
The crushing influence of an arrest is not exclusive to the face of the camera, the crew members working behind the camera is even stronger hit by it, especially the members of the transportation and the logistics department. The Teamsters Local 728 who drive the giant honey wagons, camera trucks, and star trailers are also peculiar victims. These workers are dependent on the commercial driver licenses to conduct their operational functions. In Georgia, the legal blood alcohol limit of a CDL holder driving a commercial vehicle is considered to be a very strict 0.04 that is half of the normal limit. In case a Teamster is caught in their personal vehicle driving on day off, a DUI conviction or refusal to take the administrative chemical test will automatically lead to the suspension of their commercial driving license. Their union status and employment are automatically terminated without being allowed to drive legally the production vehicles.
Film industry career would have to defend itself with the utmost strategic and aggressive legal representation to protect against the effects of an arrest, and ensuring that a formal conviction is avoided at all costs. A skillful Atlanta DUI Lawyer will realize that the possibility of pleading guilty to serve a minimum jail time is not a feasible choice when the livelihood of a client depends on the fact that he or she does not have a criminal record at all. Defense has to carefully investigate the actions of the arresting officer since the flashing lights were switched on. These are making pretrial motions to suppress evidence when the initial traffic stop did not have probable cause, objecting to the scientific reliability and operation of the standardized field sobriety tests (SFS tests), and attacking the maintenance records of the state-provided breathalyzer devices. When the evidence presented by the prosecution can be discredited systematically, then this would lead to the possibility of a bargaining down of the charges to a no-alcohol-related crime, like reckless driving, which would hardly provoke the crippling union or contractual provisions.
Finally, the enormous spread of the industry in Georgia requires severe professionalism in the set and off-set behavior. Taking an alcohol-related hoot as a small personal matter is an enormous error that can result in an entertainment professional losing a contract, losing their union card, and their good name in a market where the competition is intense. The collateral damage caused by studio insurance policies and morals clauses works completely without the criminal justice system in the state, which means that a person might lose their jobs way before they will ever set a foot in the court. Any person in this specialized business should consider an arrest as with the greatest urgency and focus on the pursuance of an all-out defensive strategy to make sure that one night of unwise behavior does not land one on the permanent black list of the production community.
