Knowing Your Rights When You Get Stopped for a DUI
A lot of people have a drink or two with dinner and then drive home thinking nothing about it, only to get stopped by the police. This very scenario has caused many people who are not criminals to have their records tarnished with a DUI conviction. However, even when you get stopped and are suspected of drinking, you have your rights, not the least of which is the ability to contact an LA criminal defense attorney, after the booking process is completed. The truth is that when this kind of circumstance happens, you are often scared and do not think about your options, but here are a couple of things that you should keep in mind.
One thing that many people do not think about when they are pulled over and asked to submit to a blood alcohol test or a sobriety test is that the reason the police do this is so that they can prove that you were intoxicated at the time you were pulled over. If you are reasonably sure that you are going to fail this test then you can elect to refuse to submit to a chemical exam or to perform any field sobriety tests. After you are arrested for suspicion of a DUI, you should immediately contact an LA criminal defense lawyer, and they can begin their job of working to make sure that you get the full benefit of their legal expertise to help get you out of the situation.
The downside to doing this is that when you decide to refuse the chemical test, this action could very well lead to a loss of your driver's license for an entire year or longer. This length of the loss will depend on your prior record and convictions. However, the good thing about refusing to submit, is that your defense counsel can call into question the opinion of the police officer that pulled you over. In addition, you can call in secondary witnesses to help discredit the opinion of how drunk you actually were. Without the hard test results that would be generated by a chemical test, everything resulting from the officer's DUI investigation will be a matter of subjective measurements and opinion.