DUI/DWI

There can be significant consequences if you are convicted of a DUI offense in Pennsylvania. A DUI can cause a loss of license (or even a loss of your job), incarceration, lengthy probation, hefty fines and court costs, complex obligations for completing probation and getting your license back.

If it is not your first DUI offense, or if the DUI involved an accident with damage to property, or injury to people, the case is even more complicated. You can be charged with a DUI for the presence of alcohol, drugs, prescribed medications, or a combination of those in your system. The legal limit for blood/alcohol in Pennsylvania is .08%. But if you refuse to give your blood for testing, there could be an automatic suspension of your driver license, even if you are never charged or convicted of a DUI charge.

There are many options for an experienced criminal defense attorney to lessen the consequences or to negotiate for certain punishments in a DUI case. The important thing is to contact an attorney as soon as possible after you are arrested, because as the case proceeds through the court system, you may be closing the door to raising certain challenges if you are unaware and don’t have counsel.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE PROVED FOR A DUI

In all states of the United States, the burden is on the Government to prove your guilt.  You don’t ever have to prove your innocence.  The Government has to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.   That is the legal standard under the United States constitution for all criminal cases, including DUI cases. 

In Pennsylvania, which is a state of the United States (but still carries the old-fashioned term “Commonwealth”), when you are being prosecuted for any crime, including a DUI case, you are being prosecuted by the “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”  This is what it will say on your paperwork.  It means the state of Pa is prosecuting you.  And the state consists of the District Attorney and the police.  Those 2 entities have the burden to prove your guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 

So what is reasonable doubt?  The usual definition that judges provide a jury is this:  Reasonable doubt is a doubt that would cause a reasonable careful and sensible person to hesitate before acting upon a matter of importance in his own affairs.  It means that before a jury can find you guilty, they must be really convinced—not 100% but also not 50/50 and not a hunch—that you are guilty of the crime. 

If you challenge your DUI case all the way to the end and have a trial, the District Attorney must prove the elements (the definition) of the crime.  With a DUI in Pennsylvania, the District Attorney must prove that you were driving or otherwise in control of a motor vehicle, and under the influence, and on what, and to what degree.  All of those terms have further definitions and you should review that carefully with your attorney. 

The “under the influence” element of the DUI charge depends on whether you were mentally and/or physically impaired because you used alcohol, drugs, or a combination of these substances.  You’re considered “under the influence” if your mental or physical abilities were impaired so that you no longer had the ability to drive a vehicle with the same amount of caution a sober and reasonable person would use under the same or similar circumstances.

In order for a jury in a trial to find you not guilty, then must have a reasonable doubt.  It does not mean that they must believe in their hearts that you are absolutely innocent.  But since the Government has the burden to prove your guilt, if the jury feels that the Government hasn’t sufficient proven it, and that they have some doubt that is reasonable, then they are required to find you not guilty.  That is the law they are sworn to follow and it is the instruction the judge gives before they go deliberate the verdict.

In your DUI case, you will have several phases where you can raise legal challenges.  First you will have a preliminary hearing, which is a probable cause hearing.  This means the lower court judge in this hearing must decide if there if the District Attorney and police have shown a prima facie case—probable cause to believe that you may have committed a DUI offense.  They do not need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at this stage. 

Then your DUI case proceeds to the higher court, where your attorney will begin obtaining discovery (the evidence in the case like detailed police reports, camera footage from police dash cameras and body cams, camera footage when your blood was drawn or at the hospital, camera footage interviewing witnesses, etc).  After you review all that with your attorney, you can decide if there are pretrial motions to file in your DUI case.  An example would be a motion to suppress evidence if the police did not have authority to detain you,, or search you, your car, or other related issues.

At some point, if all attempts to work out an agreement with the District Attorney have failed, the judge will scheduled your DUI case for a trial.  And that is where the case ends.   In a trial, the jury will hear the evidence, listen to witnesses, and take instructions from the judge on the law.  But it is the jury who decides what happened.  As the person accused of a DUI, you have a right to testify, and to present witnesses and evidence on your own side for the jury’s consideration.   Ultimately, the jury is instructed by the judge on how the law is defined on DUI cases, and the jury then decides, based on those instructions, what occurred and whether the person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 

If you feel that you may want to proceed with a trial in your DUI case, or you’d at least like to explore possible defenses, you need to get an expert DUI attorney. Attorney Kathryn Roberts has defended DUI cases for 25 years and been an instructor in criminal law for many years.  She has won numerous trials in DUIs, as well as successfully raised legal defenses well before reaching any trial.  You have a constitutional right to challenge your case at every stage of the legal proceedings, but you need to get a criminal defense attorney who has defended many DUI cases all the way through. 

Years practicing law doesn’t count if the lawyer hasn’t had numerous trials.  It would be like having a doctor do your surgery who has studied it and heard about it but not done the surgery himself over and over.  No one would want that doctor.  It’s the same when deciding on a DUI attorney to hire.  The most important factor is how many trials that attorney has already had in her or his career.  Attorney Kathryn Roberts has had an extraordinary amount of jury trials.  As of December 2023, she’d conducted 116 jury trials to a full verdict.