DUI Lawyer Defense Secrets Revealed

If you are currently looking for a DUI lawyer then these are the specific things you will want to make sure that they do for you.  If you have already retained a DUI lawyer some time in the past and your case is complete, read this and ask yourself whether or not your DUI lawyer did all of this for you?

 First your DUI lawyer should properly explain to you (in terms you can understand) all of the charges brought against you because most likely you were not simply charged w/ 1 violation, most likely the police officer cited you for at least 2 if not more violations of specific vehicle codes.  Your DUI lawyer should know what these codes are and explain to you what each one is for and why you were cited for a violation of that particular vehicle code.  Most of the time a police officer will cite you for more than 1 violation in an attempt to make the DUI charge stick.  It’s negotiating power for the district attorney’s office for those w/ low BAC levels.  They will offer to drop all other charges if you plead out the DUI.  Anyway, make sure your DUI lawyer explains in detail what the prosecution has charged you with and what he/she thinks their rationale is for doing so.

After that they should ask you a battery of questions to determine what actually transpired on that occasion where you were cited for Drunk Driving.  The questioning should be centered around finding out whether or not the police officer acted appropriately throughout the phases of the DUI arrest. 

The most important phases of the DUI arrest are:

           1.      The initial stop

2.      Performance of the field sobriety tests (if any were done), and of course

3.      Breath, blood or urine samples attained at the scene or at the station.

Your DUI lawyer should look for inconsistencies throughout each important phase of your DUI arrest.

The intial stop.  Did the officer have probable cause to pull you over?  What was his/her reason for pulling you over?  Was it clearly stated on the police report?  There are several issues that go into this but primarily the specific circumstances and location of the DUI stop should be thoroughly reviewed.  Any good DUI lawyer should focus on the initial stop first to see if they can invalidate the reason why the police officer pulled you over to begin with.  If they can prove that the officer did not have a good enough reason to pull you over for questioning then any evidence collected after that wrongful stop will be inadmissible in court and you could have your DUI case dismissed.

Field Sobriety Tests.  So after your DUI lawyer gets a good review of how the initial stop took place they should then focus on the field sobriety tests that may or may not have been conducted.  The purpose of the field sobriety tests is primarily to collect evidence against the accused that they can later use to prove their case against you that you were in deed intoxicated while driving.  So your DUI lawyer should look to invalidate the way in which the tests were administered to render them invalid and not admissible in court.  Some things your DUI lawyer should look at are any extenuating circumstances that may have occurred while the field sobriety tests were being done.  Were you standing on a steep incline?  What was the weather like?  What type of shoes were you wearing?  What are the officers training records like for administering these tests?  Are they up to date?  Does he use a boiler plate type approach when administering these tests, which means does he check off the same symptoms of impairment for everyone that he gives the field sobriety tests to?  Etc…

Your DUI lawyer should examine every possible detail of the tests and look for ways to invalidate them.

 

Breath Blood or Urine Sample.  After that your DUI lawyer should focus on the evidence collected in the form of breath, blood, or urine at the scene or at the police station.  Some avenues of defense are the popular subtractive retrograde theory or more commonly referred to as the “rising BAC theory” which means that while driving you may have been under .08 BAC but by the time you were tested (which could be 2+ hours from the time of the intial DUI stop) you tested at or over .08 due to the passage of time. 

Some other avenues that should be reviewed are the calibration records on the Intoxilyzer 5000 machine that was used to test your breath… were the calibrations performed properly and up to date?  Did the tech who did the calibration have the proper certification to be working on the machine?  Etc… 

There should be a strong paper trail of training records and certifications that are all up to date in order for the Intoxilyzer reading to be considered accurate.  Other than that were proper procedures followed when you were tested?  Was your blood drawn (if applicable) by someone qualified to do so?  If it was a phlebotomist who drew your blood, were they supervised by a qualified MD or RN?  And on and on…

This is just a brief run down of the basic structure of what your DUI lawyer should have looked at while defending you or what you will want your DUI lawyer to do for you (at a minimum) if you retain them for defense.  Your paying good money for a good defense so take an active role and make sure that you are exploring every possible avenue to keep yourself from being convicted of a DUI offense.

 

Get help here:  DUI Help