DUI Defenses

HOW WE WILL DEFEND YOU

We aggressively represent you in all stages of your DUI case. Many times you will never have to appear in court.

When charged with a DUI, the accused is usually facing two separate proceedings. The first is the DMV hearing. The second is the DUI Criminal proceeding. These are two separate and distinct proceedings. You have a very limited time from the date of your arrest to request a DMV hearing. At the hearing, the DMV has to prove that they have the right to suspend your license. However, you must first request the hearing, if you want them to have to prove their case.

The criminal portion of the DUI may be either a misdemeanor or in some cases a felony depending on the individual case. Most DUI's are charged as misdemeanors. In that event, we can usually appear for you at most of the court appearances.

The DUI charge is usually two charges, the first is that you were driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and the second being that you had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) percentage over .08%. The first charge can be brought even if your BAC was under .08%.

At the first appearance, called the arraignment, we will obtain the complaint and the initial police report. It is then that we will enter your plea of not guilty. From there, we will review the police report and other discovery we obtain. From our years of experience, we will note both what is in the report, and more importantly, what is missing. Remember that the police only put in the bad stuff. We will focus on the reason for the stop, the pre-interview process, the report of your appearance, the performance of the field sobriety tests (FST's), the preliminary alcohol screening test, and the actual blood, breath or urine test taken at the station. We will then schedule time to review the report with you, and have a preliminary discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of your case. However, this is only the beginning. We have to work to get the exculpatory things, the things that may sway a jury to your side. But remember that the mere fact that some number of your BAC % is reported does not make you guilty.

The process is an evolutionary one, where we must go out and get the evidence necessary to successfully defend your case. We can have a forensic analyst review your DUI case for scientific issues. Many times we will have the blood retested, make sure that the proper preservative was put in, or that the BAC % is consistent with what was reported. We will investigate the breath machine, its maintenance and calibration, and the training of the police officer for that machine. We will visit the scene where you were pulled over, so that on cross examination we know what we are talking about.

Many times we can argue to suppress the evidence based upon 4th amendment constitutional violations. They occur much more frequently than they should.

During this entire process we are negotiating with the District Attorney on your case, to obtain either a dismissal or reduced charges.

Eventually, we either obtain a settlement acceptable to you, or we announce ready for trial. The trial can last several days. The first thing we will do at the trial is to swear in a jury panel. The judge brings in 30 or 40 people from whom we will pick the jury. Eventually, they will be brought in and we will perform voir dire (jury selection). The law says that we are not allowed to "indoctrinate" the jury, but we will try to get their feelings and share ours, and try to get rid of those we do not like.

We will make various motions, whether that is to try to get in the Preliminary Alcohol Screening (PAS) test, or keep it out, and to argue evidentiary matters.

Each side gives an opening statement to the jury, telling them their summary of the case. Then the prosecutor puts on their side of the case. They will usually call the police officer, any witnesses, the lab technician, a forensic analyst. Our job is to cross exam each of their witnesses, and to get to the truth. For example the police officer will say that you smelled of alcohol, and did not walk a line straight. But he will fail to tell the jury that you were cooperative, did not fumble with your wallet, did not stumble getting out of the car, did not lean on anything as you were talking to him, answered his questions clearly, and followed directions well. Our job is to demonstrate all of those things to the jury.

Eventually, the prosecution will rest, and we may call some witnesses. Sometimes we will have our own experts, forensic analysts, or accident reconstructionists, or investigators.

Finally, we will argue some more motions, and then present our closing arguments to the jury. The judge will tell the jury what the law is, including what we have argued in our motions that the law really is. They will go off and deliberate, and if everything goes well, come back with a not guilty verdict!