DUI Lawyer: What to Expect During Your Defense

What Happens After a DUI Arrest and How a Lawyer Steps In

Getting arrested for a DUI is terrifying and the whole process feels like it moves a million miles an hour with cops booking you taking your license and giving you a bunch of paperwork that makes no sense when you are still trying to process what just happened but a DUI lawyer deals with this exact situation every single day and knows exactly what needs to happen next to protect your rights and your driving privileges. The first thing a DUI lawyer will tell you is that you are actually facing two separate battles at the same time because there is the criminal court case where you face jail time fines and probation and then there is the administrative hearing with the DMV about your driver’s license suspension and those are completely independent proceedings with different deadlines and different rules. A DUI lawyer will immediately request that DMV hearing because in most states you only have about ten days after the arrest to demand it and if you miss that deadline your license gets suspended automatically no matter what eventually happens with the criminal case. The arraignment is your first court appearance and a DUI lawyer will go with you to enter a not guilty plea and start getting discovery from the prosecutor which includes the police reports dashcam footage body camera video and the calibration and maintenance records for the breathalyzer machine that was used to test your blood alcohol level. A DUI lawyer will also start looking at whether the traffic stop itself was legal because if the officer did not have reasonable suspicion to pull you over in the first place everything that happened after including the arrest and the chemical test results could get thrown out entirely. And if you refused the breathalyzer or blood test a DUI lawyer can explain the consequences of refusal in your state because some states have enhanced penalties for refusals that can be worse than a DUI conviction itself which seems backward but that is how the laws are written.

The Defense Strategies a DUI Lawyer Uses to Challenge the Case

The defense strategies a DUI lawyer brings to the table depend on the specific facts of your case but there are a handful of common approaches that can get charges reduced or dismissed entirely if the evidence supports them. Challenging the validity of the traffic stop is one of the strongest defenses a DUI lawyer can raise because if the officer did not have a legal reason to pull you over in the first place the entire case is fruit of the poisonous tree and should be thrown out on a motion to suppress. The accuracy of the breathalyzer test is another major area of attack for a DUI lawyer because those machines need to be calibrated regularly and maintained properly and if the calibration logs show lapses or the officer was not properly trained to administer the test the results can be excluded from evidence. A DUI lawyer will also look at whether there were medical conditions that could have caused a false positive on the breath test like acid reflux diabetes or certain diets that produce acetone in the breath which some machines read as alcohol. Field sobriety tests are notoriously unreliable and a DUI lawyer will challenge the officer’s administration of these tests and bring in expert testimony about all the factors that can cause a sober person to fail them including uneven pavement poor lighting physical disabilities and even just being nervous with a cop shining a flashlight in your face. If your DUI lawyer finds that the officer violated your constitutional rights during the stop or the arrest they can also file a motion to suppress the evidence and if that motion is granted the prosecutor often has no choice but to dismiss the case or offer a plea to a much lesser charge like reckless driving. For people who also need SR22 insurance after a DUI conviction a DUI lawyer can advise on when you will need that filing and help you coordinate with your auto insurance quote provider so there is no gap in coverage when you finally get your license back.