DEFENSES IN DUI CASES
If you failed a field sobriety test or a chemical test (blood test, breath test or urine test), you might automatically assume you’re guilty, but that’s not necessarily the case. There are many ways to challenge a DUI charge.
Let experienced DUI attorney Kathryn Roberts explain some options to you. The vehicle stop, the test results, the detaining of you, the arrest itself are all possible challenges. She can explain your right to a trial where you may be able to raise questions in the mind of a judge or a jury about the accuracy of the evidence, possibly leading to a not guilty verdict, a hung jury (not unanimous), or even dismissal of charges by a judge. Fighting DUI charges this way is entirely legal – you are presumed innocent until convicted of all charges – and often leads to a positive outcome. But only a highly skilled DUI attorney can assist you in this fight. DUI attorney Kathryn Roberts has won many of these cases.
Many people say to themselves “Well, I know they got me so why should I fight it?” That’s a complicated answer. If you roll over and just plead guilty right away, you run the risk of heavy fines, long driver’s license suspension, a sentence of jail time, and many other penalties. These penalties are automatically imposed after a guilty plea and sentencing.
Another risk of pleading guilty right away is the possibility of more severe punishment if you get a second DUI arrest within 10 years of your first offense. Such a situation could cause serious fallout for you and your family. So don’t jump right to a guilty plea. The way to head off any of these negative outcomes is to consult with an experienced DUI attorney, Kathryn Roberts. Call her and she’ll give you a consultation that is personal, detailed and FREE.
Below are just a few of the MANY examples of ways that DUI Attorney Kathryn Roberts would
be examining your case looking for defenses.
- Were the machines used by police to test your blood alcohol level properly calibrated and maintained?
Sometimes people charged with a DUI think that those machines are foolproof—they aren’t. Machines break and malfunction. DUI machines rely on humans to keep them maintained properly (just like we have to do regular maintenance to our cars) and the machines only give accurate results if the person using them has followed instructions properly in running them (in the same way that a car can have problems if being operated by a person who doesn’t drive correctly).
- When was your blood drawn and is that an accurate number?
It’s important to examine when the blood was drawn from you in relation to when you were driving. An experienced DUI lawyer will always consider having the blood re-tested by a different lab and then possibly using services of a hematologist or blood technician to evaluate whether the blood-alcohol level that the police have assigned to you is accurate. Blood-alcohol levels rise and then fall, and it’s important to understand the factors that can affect when and how that occurs (e.g. your age, height and weight, gender, alcohol tolerance).
In addition, the timing of the testing by the police lab is important because it’s possible that the blood-alcohol level determined by the police lab is higher than it was when you were driving (because your level was rising over time) and that you were actually under the legal limit when you drove.
- What was the reason given by police that they stopped your vehicle and was it a proper stop and detaining of you under the law?
This is a complex subject under Pennsylvania law, as it deals with search and seizure law under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. It is complex for lawyers and judges to understand, even after they study it for many years. In addition, search and seizure law is constantly changing. In my experience, most police officers do not even understand the law because it is so complex, and so they stop cars, detain people, and often conduct searches or make arrests based on “hunches,” rather than proper legal standards.
An experienced criminal defense attorney will always be examining for whether the police overstepped the boundaries of what they are allowed to do, and if the attorney believes this has happened in a case, he or she will usually file a motion to suppress evidence. This results in a hearing well before any trial later, and if the judge agrees with the defense argument, then the evidence can be suppressed, which means the prosecutor may not use it in a trial against you. This can result in a dismissal of the charges if there is no other evidence against you in the case.
- Did the police conduct field sobriety tests on you and was it done fairly?
Field sobriety tests can help a police officer develop probable cause to make an arrest for a DUI. Police are trained at police academies on how to conduct these tests, which are usually done on the side of the road, often at night.
In my experience, what police are not well-trained in is determining whether there are other factors that may make a person do poorly on these tests. For example, a person who has never been arrested before and has been stopped by police, especially at night, may exhibit extreme signs of nervousness, which can affect the person’s ability to perform the tests and also influence the officer to mistakenly believe the person is under the influence (or think the person is more intoxicated than he or she is).
Moreover, there are many other factors that can affect someone’s ability to do these tests. I have had disabled clients and elderly clients who failed such tests given to them on the side of the road, but who were completely sober. Drivers who are overly fatigued, but not intoxicated, can also easily fail these tests.
Police officers sometimes simply disregard how nerve-wracking it could be to someone to try to walk backwards (for example) on the side of the road, at night, with trucks racing by, with a police officer shining his flashlight in their face. An experienced DUI attorney will always consult with the client about how these tests were given and then whether the results affect the overall case, and if so, how.
- Are the police mistaken when they judged you as under the influence?
When you get detained by police for suspicion of DUI, the police often rely on their observations of you to decide if there’s probable cause. If your car was crossing over the lines or you were speeding up and slowing down, or not stopping at red lights, these are types of signs for police that suggest that someone may be under the influence. Of course, there are many other reasons that a person could be driving erratically—everything from having an argument with someone on the phone while driving, to being very fatigued after a work shift, to being hungry and low blood sugar, to having a medical condition that makes you appear tired/hungry/unsteady etc. So even though police may views signs that suggest you are under the influence, there could be other reasons.
This is why the police and district attorney will rest upon the blood results, which tell them if you were actually under the influence. If the blood results reflect intoxication, then your explanations for showing those other signs might be accepted as true, but won’t change that you were under the influence. However, if the police don’t have your blood (i.e. you refused the blood draw, or you were taken to the hospital for treatment, or some other reason), then your explanations for those initial observations by the police matter more. The bottom line is that the District Attorney’s office does not want to wrongfully convict someone of a DUI, and they are willing to listen to alternative explanations in some instances, especially if no blood results are available.
- What if there’s no evidence you were driving?
Under Pennsylvania law, you can’t be found guilty of a DUI unless you were in “actual physical control” of the vehicle. If the police are claiming you were driving, that is “actual physical control.” Therefore, if police pulled you
over, then they are claiming they observed you driving. If police come upon you after-the-fact (like you pulled over on your own) or just had an accident, and police don’t find you driving, they will base their case on their claim (and evidence) that you were just driving minutes earlier. Alternatively, there are situations where a person never actually drove, and can still be charged with DUI. Since the DUI statute in Pa requires police to prove simply “actual physical control” of the vehicle, you can be charged and convicted of DUI even if you didn’t drive yet. This is a somewhat common scenario, where police come upon someone in a parking lot of a restaurant or bar, for example, and the person may be showing signs of intoxication, but didn’t actually drive yet. Can they be charged with DUI? The answer depends on whether they were in a position “ready to drive.” This is a very detailed analysis that is guided by decisions from appeals courts in Pennsylvania. If you are sitting in your car listening to music, drinking a six-pack of beer, with the keys in the ignition, this will likely lead to a DUI charge.
Ironically, however, if you stumble out of a bar highly intoxicated, get to your car and promptly fall asleep with the keys falling on the floor, you may get the benefit of not being charged with a DUI because you will be deemed not in “actual physical control” of the vehicle. It’s a very careful analysis that your lawyer must do to determine if there is a possible defense in these scenarios.
- Do police have to have probable cause to pull me over for a DUI?
If police pull you over in Pennsylvania, they need either probable cause to believe that you are committing or have just committed a crime, or they need reasonable suspicion (which is less than probable cause) to believe that you have violated the Vehicle Code in Pa. Very often the police do NOT yet have probable cause to believe that you are committing a DUI offense when they are following you down the road or observe you. There certainly are scenarios that raise red flags for police, such as a person driving alone in the middle of the night. But driving late at night is not evidence of any crime. Therefore, the most common scenario with persons pulled over is that police suspect something is amiss and they will take the opportunity to follow and observe you driving and see if you violate the Vehicle Code in any way. If they observe even a single violation, they can pull you over. (Therefore, in Pennsylvania, police must articulate in court at least one violation of the Vehicle Code such as crossing over lines, speeding, other types of erratic driving, to justify pulling you over. At that point, once they have you pulled over, police typically will use the opportunity to interact with you while getting your license and vehicle info, to see what develops. If they begin observing signs during interacting with you that you may be impaired, or other signs that you may have just consumed drugs or alcohol, they may further detain you to speak with you. At that point, you are not under arrest, but you are in an “investigative detention” for a brief period, and not free to leave. Police are not required during an investigative detention to read your rights to you and if you say something incriminating in response to police questioning, your statements are admissible in court.
If you believe that police could not possibly have observed even one violation by your driving of the Vehicle Code, you have a right to challenge the police decision to pull you over. This is done through pre-trial motions in the trial court, which is the higher court after your preliminary hearing in the lower court has completed. If the judge agreed with your assertion that you did not violate the Vehicle Code in any way, then the judge could declare the stopping of you improper and potentially suppress all further evidence gained as a result of the illegal stop. This would likely result in a dismissal of your case.
Keep in mind that if you assert you did not violate the Vehicle Code, the police would be testifying and asserting that you did. The judge would then be faced with deciding whether to believe your testimony (and your own assessment of your driving) versus the description by the police. Also keep in mind that police commonly have dashboard camera footage to review and which can be used in court. If the camera footage is clear, then the court will usually base its decision on the footage, rather than descriptions by you or by the police.
People often wonder when they can obtain the police camera footage. The answer in Pennsylvania is that you are entitled to begin requesting and obtaining that camera footage (if it exists) when your case gets to the higher trial court, but not while the case is pending in the lower magisterial district court for your preliminary hearing. This means that for your first hearing, the preliminary hearing (probable cause hearing), you will not be permitted to obtain and view the camera footage.
