DUI
Many people feel that not much can be done on DUI cases, but they are worth fighting particularly considering the severity of the penalties, and the long term consequences of license suspensions, higher insurance costs, expensive fines, alcohol classes, etc.
There are a number of areas for fighting the cases, including :
- Whether the stop was valid (probable cause).
- Whether the person was in fact "driving".
- Whether they were "under the influence".
- the accuracy of the tests (the breathalizer as well as the officer's subjective observations during field sobriety tests) - including factors such as timing of the tests with relation to when the person was driving.
A lot of it depends on the facts alleged, obviously, so each case will be unique as far as the angle of attack.
As far as the suspensions, there are two separate ones that the person faces - the DMV administrative suspension and the suspension imposed as part of the sentence in the criminal case. By requesting the administrative hearing, the DMV suspension will be delayed a bit, and can thus run closer to a concurrent time as any court-imposed suspension (this will depend on when everything is scheduled and how quickly the case is resolved). With the DMV hearing, the hearing officers are not judges, and their goal is to uphold suspensions, so the hearings are rarely ever won. Still, it's worth a try, and the arguments will depend on the facts of the individual cases. With the DMV suspensions, a restricted license can usually be obtained after the first month, as long as the defendant has enrolled in an alcohol program.
Requesting the administrative hearing :
Within 10 days of the DUI arrest, a request for an administrative hearing needs to be filed with the DMV, and it can be faxed to any of the DMV Driver Safety Offices (it also makes good sense to fax it to several and keep the confirmation sheets so that they cannot claim that they did not receive it).
