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How does a DUI work?

letsrun4it

letsrun4it

New member
Ok so my girlfriend has gone ahead and caused even more drama. For those who have read my posts you know this girl makes things quite complicated all the time. Anyway..

She gets pulled over for DUI and blows .084% (legal limit is .08) in the police testing device and then back at the station on the real machine she blows .072% and .066% (under the legal limit) and they charged her with DUI, are the field breathlyzers admissable in court? I always figured they weren't because if they were so accurate there'd be no point in doing the one back at the station.
 
DON'T BLOW!!

Sounds like your g-friend actually though she's be below the limit though. She should never have blown on the road test. Any time you can put between the time you have your last drink and testing is valuable. They will use her first test result in court if you fight it. If this is her first chances are she will get it reduced to a reckless-op.
 
A good lawyer can get that reduced down. The field sobriety tests are less accurate. A good lawyer will ask for documentation that of the calibration of the machines, whether the technician was certified to administer the test, etc. Mouth alcohol and certain other conditions can effect the readings of the machine. This is a very complex set of issues that effect admissibility. From what you have told me, she should definitely get a lawyer who does lots of dui defense. She has a good case, and it probably will be dismissed or reduced on a lesser charge.

Of course, I am only experienced in the state in which I used to practice and this is not legal advice. I'm only advising you that I think a good lawyer can do wonders for her in this case.
 
Well she'll definitely get a lawyer and fight it. She has a perfectly clean record so yea I would think she could get it reduced. She was WAAAAY more drunk than 0.08% would indicate so I think she didn't think for a second she could blow under the legal limit.
 
slat1 said:
You kind of have to like the idea of a girl who blows without putting any thought into it.
Click to expand...

lets put it this way...when she got to the station and the breath tester was sitting there, im sure she didnt have to be asked. and definitely didn't need to be told how to do it.
 
HeatherRae said:
A good lawyer can get that reduced down. The field sobriety tests are less accurate. A good lawyer will ask for documentation that of the calibration of the machines, whether the technician was certified to administer the test, etc. Mouth alcohol and certain other conditions can effect the readings of the machine. This is a very complex set of issues that effect admissibility. From what you have told me, she should definitely get a lawyer who does lots of dui defense. She has a good case, and it probably will be dismissed or reduced on a lesser charge.

Of course, I am only experienced in the state in which I used to practice and this is not legal advice. I'm only advising you that I think a good lawyer can do wonders for her in this case.
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GREAT POINTS!!!!!
 
letsrun4it said:
lets put it this way...when she got to the station and the breath tester was sitting there, im sure she didnt have to be asked. and definitely didn't need to be told how to do it.
Click to expand...


Sounds like a keeper!
 
She should have refused the breathalizer then the worst thing she could get is an OWI. The worst part of all this is the cost of the whole ordeal. Most DUIs are anywhere between $3000-up to $10,000 total depending on what you make and what they can take. Usually they ake you do community service,pay fines and go to very expensive alcohol/drug rehab classes where you talk about your experiences and see how you compare wih other drunks and addicts.
 
dannomight said:
She should have refused the breathalizer then the worst thing she could get is an OWI. The worst part of all this is the cost of the whole ordeal. Most DUIs are anywhere between $3000-up to $10,000 total depending on what you make and what they can take. Usually they ake you do community service,pay fines and go to very expensive alcohol/drug rehab classes where you talk about your experiences and see how you compare wih other drunks and addicts.
Click to expand...
First DUI's in my state were not all that expensive. I would handle first DUI's for $750 flat fee. Sometimes they would plead guilty for concessions on sentencing, etc. Usually the fines and fees were about $600. It varies from state to state. Now, on subsequent DUI's I charged hourly, because a trial is more likely to be needed.

HTH
 
The Judicial system is nothing more than crooks with power.
 
alien amp pharm said:
The Judicial system is nothing more than crooks with power.
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EXACTLY. The last time I got a ticket my lawyer told me don't worry I go golfing with this judge every sunday. I've also been told "I was a judge in several of this prosecutors cases so we'll make this go away."
 
HeatherRae said:
First DUI's in my state were not all that expensive. I would handle first DUI's for $750 flat fee. Sometimes they would plead guilty for concessions on sentencing, etc. Usually the fines and fees were about $600. It varies from state to state. Now, on subsequent DUI's I charged hourly, because a trial is more likely to be needed.

HTH
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So it would be more like $1350 before paying for counseling? They also may make a first timer do an evaluation adn may sign them up for classes whis=ch are costly. Plus the cost of the tow and vehicle impound. Where I live you have to pay $25 to get a release paper so you can get your vehicle out and then you pay the towing company to get your vehicl.

When I got a PI,poss of marij, and driving while suspended, I just did a plea agreement and plead guilty to the PI and all the others were dropped but I still had to pay my lawyer $500 plus $400 in fines and do 6 classes that cost $450. I also had 40hrs community service but a friend of mine's dad "took care" of that. I also had to pay to get my car out of impound so it was close to a quick $1500 hit to the wallet.
 
she should get bucky buchanan or some fancy ass lawyer. of course that's non-refundable money. yes lawyers are evil but necessary.

of all the suggestions - this one's the best: stop drinking. she may kill her or someone else one day.
 
dannomight said:
So it would be more like $1350 before paying for counseling? They also may make a first timer do an evaluation adn may sign them up for classes whis=ch are costly. Plus the cost of the tow and vehicle impound. Where I live you have to pay $25 to get a release paper so you can get your vehicle out and then you pay the towing company to get your vehicl.

When I got a PI,poss of marij, and driving while suspended, I just did a plea agreement and plead guilty to the PI and all the others were dropped but I still had to pay my lawyer $500 plus $400 in fines and do 6 classes that cost $450. I also had 40hrs community service but a friend of mine's dad "took care" of that. I also had to pay to get my car out of impound so it was close to a quick $1500 hit to the wallet.
Click to expand...
I'm not talking about vehicle impound etc. I'm not sure whether her vehicle was impounded or not. I was including the costs for the alcohol classes in my state. Yours could be more. =-)
 
Razorguns said:
she should get bucky buchanan or some fancy ass lawyer. of course that's non-refundable money. yes lawyers are evil but necessary.

of all the suggestions - this one's the best: stop drinking. she may kill her or someone else one day.
Click to expand...


Agreed. Or atleast get a fuckin' taxi. No need to endanger someone elses lives because one thinks they are "great" drivers when they drink.
 
a good DUI lawyer will cost some money, but will be well worth it. They can get this thing tossed out of court.
 
how do lawyers get dui's tossed out of court? everyone makes it seem like all you do is pay a bunch of money for a lawyer and the prosecution magically drops the charges because you paid money. I dont get how you can dispute the results of the station's breathalyzer, and the fact that you were driving
 
letsrun4it said:
Ok so my girlfriend has gone ahead and caused even more drama. For those who have read my posts you know this girl makes things quite complicated all the time. Anyway..

She gets pulled over for DUI and blows .084% (legal limit is .08) in the police testing device and then back at the station on the real machine she blows .072% and .066% (under the legal limit) and they charged her with DUI, are the field breathlyzers admissable in court? I always figured they weren't because if they were so accurate there'd be no point in doing the one back at the station.
Click to expand...

Here (and Im talking about here only), the real machine is what cares in court. The field test will help strengthen the case but can't no way be the only evidence to back up a DUI. That's why they have the big machine at the station. Because it's accuracy makes it almost impossible to build a case against.

Now what I usually tell to people about DUI: dont ever take the field test. Waste time, discuss, go to the station and then blow. The time wasted might be a life saver.
 
manny78 said:
Here (and Im talking about here only), the real machine is what cares in court. The field test will help strengthen the case but can't no way be the only evidence to back up a DUI. That's why they have the big machine at the station. Because it's accuracy makes it almost impossible to build a case against.

Now what I usually tell to people about DUI: dont ever take the field test. Waste time, discuss, go to the station and then blow. The time wasted might be a life saver.
Click to expand...
It isn't impossible at all to build a case against a >.8 reading at the station. Those machines are not infallible, and each state has a set of guidelines for the administration of the test. Many, many factors can determine whether these test results are even admissible. You have to consider whether there was probable cause to pull over the driver in the first place. If not, any subsequent evidence is inadmissible. You have to consider whether the test was administered properly by an officer certified to administer the test, whether the machine was properly calibrated, whether the observation period was met before administering the test, whether any mouth alcohol from belching or vomiting was in the mouth, etc, etc. I could really write a hundred pages on this, but I will spare you....lol.

Also, diabetes and other medical conditions can render the results unreliable. Diabetics tend to have ketones in their mouth, which will make the test read higher. I have never had the opportunity to use this defense before, and I have never seen a case from any state using it, but I would love to have had a case where I could argue that someone was on a low carb diet and in ketosis, thus affecting the readings. That would have been cool! I didn't have any clients in ketosis, though...lol.

Well, I probably have already bored the shit out of you guys with my ponificating, but suffice it to say that if you have a criminal defense lawyer who is worth their salt, they will ask you every detail of what you drank, who was present, what you ate, any medical conditions, the stop, the on scene investigation, the modes of field sobriety testing, the arrest, the detainment. He or she will get the calibration records for the machine and verify whether the officer was certified to administer the test. In our state they are also required to wait 20 minutes and observe you during that time before they administer it. They also have to say you have the right to refuse it. There are other disclaimers they have to administer, as well.

I hate to see people just plead guilty when they really had a good defense that could have saved them from a DUI on their record. A good lawyer can at least advise you of whether or not she has a good defense.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you have to meet the elements of the crime. In the state in which I used to practice, you have to show that they operated a vehicle (vehicle was so loosely defined that it could have been a damn horse), on a road (I'm paraphrasing for simplicity), while impaired.

I had a client once who was arrested for a DUI second and driving on a DUI suspended license. The facts of the case were that a tenant on her fiances property called the police because they had some words about the tenant not paying the rent. The client was outside the house of the tenant, so drunk that she could hardly walk. She was planting flowers and tidying up the yard with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and her car parked in the yard with the door open. The test results at the station were inconclusive because the air sample was not large enough. The cops listed this as a refusal. I had the case completely dismissed because of the following:

1. My client alleged that she didn't begin drinking until after she arrived and started tidying up the yard. No one saw her drink before she drove the car.

2. She only drove the car through a large field that connected the fiances house and the tenant's house. Therefore, she didn't even operate a vehicle on the road.

3. The inability to get a sufficient sample was because she had asthma. They should have offered her a blood test and failed to do so.

4. She asked to be able to speak to me before questioning and before the administration of the test, and they refused.

I pointed all this out the prosecutor and told him he was wasting his and the court's time and effort. He was the one who made the oral motion before the court to dismiss the case. He did so at the preliminary hearing. The facts simply could not support the elements of the offense.

I love talking law...lol.
 
HeatherRae said:
It isn't impossible at all to build a case against a >.8 reading at the station. Those machines are not infallible, and each state has a set of guidelines for the administration of the test. Many, many factors can determine whether these test results are even admissible. You have to consider whether there was probable cause to pull over the driver in the first place. If not, any subsequent evidence is inadmissible. You have to consider whether the test was administered properly by an officer certified to administer the test, whether the machine was properly calibrated, whether the observation period was met before administering the test, whether any mouth alcohol from belching or vomiting was in the mouth, etc, etc. I could really write a hundred pages on this, but I will spare you....lol.

Also, diabetes and other medical conditions can render the results unreliable. Diabetics tend to have ketones in their mouth, which will make the test read higher. I have never had the opportunity to use this defense before, and I have never seen a case from any state using it, but I would love to have had a case where I could argue that someone was on a low carb diet and in ketosis, thus affecting the readings. That would have been cool! I didn't have any clients in ketosis, though...lol.

Well, I probably have already bored the shit out of you guys with my ponificating, but suffice it to say that if you have a criminal defense lawyer who is worth their salt, they will ask you every detail of what you drank, who was present, what you ate, any medical conditions, the stop, the on scene investigation, the modes of field sobriety testing, the arrest, the detainment. He or she will get the calibration records for the machine and verify whether the officer was certified to administer the test. In our state they are also required to wait 20 minutes and observe you during that time before they administer it. They also have to say you have the right to refuse it. There are other disclaimers they have to administer, as well.
Click to expand...

As I said, ALMOST impossible. Diabetes and some medical conditions may have an influence and save your ass but trust me, here, where I live, it's extremely difficult. Judges are very DUI unfriendly. I knew someone who had a good case but he lost after throwing $20k away in legal fees. Concerning DUI, no probable cause is required here. They can randomly stop you just for the sake of it and make you blow the machine. Happened to me many times. That's how our law is made. You wouldn't make lots of money here defending drunk folks (guess that's why I went to business law instead lol) cause the burden is on the defendant for DUI lol ......
 
manny78 said:
As I said, ALMOST impossible. Diabetes and some medical conditions may have an influence and save your ass but trust me, here, where I live, it's extremely difficult. Judges are very DUI unfriendly. I knew someone who had a good case but he lost after throwing $20k away in legal fees. Concerning DUI, no probable cause is required here. They can randomly stop you just for the sake of it and make you blow the machine. Happened to me many times. That's how our law is made. You wouldn't make lots of money here defending drunk folks (guess that's why I went to business law instead lol) cause the burden is on the defendant for DUI lol ......
Click to expand...


The laws are supposed to be tough here, too, but I have successfully defended plenty of DUI's. There are DUI stop points in which they stop everyone, but there are ways that they have to go about setting those up too and sometimes you can get the whole case thrown out because it was an improper DUI stop point. I highly doubt your state has thrown out the requirement of probable cause for pulling over vehicles. As a matter of fact, I know that no jurisdiction have done away with the probably cause requirement, other than in valid sobriety check point situations.
 
Last edited:
Lesson Learned..

Don't Drink and Drive unless you are a Super Hot chick that can
"somehow" get the cop to let you go.
 
Get that lawyer....spend the money and make sure they "Think they can win" ask em stright up and if the tell ya what you wanna hear drop the loot.....is so much cheaper in the long run...then dealing with all the classes...and all that crap that goes with the DUI
 
HeatherRae said:
The laws are supposed to be tough here, too, but I have successfully defended plenty of DUI's. There are DUI stop points in which they stop everyone, but there are ways that they have to go about setting those up too and sometimes you can get the whole case thrown out because it was an improper DUI stop point. I highly doubt your state has thrown out the requirement of probable cause for pulling over vehicles. As a matter of fact, I know that no jurisdiction have done away with the probably cause requirement, other than in valid sobriety check point situations.
Click to expand...

The law was amended under the last government because DUIs were becomming a plague. There's no problable cause required so technically, one cop car could stop you and make you blow. However, they usually just set up old fashion roadblock. I've been stopped twice by unmarked cruisers. On both occasion it was 4am and they just asked me the usual papers and to step out and blow.

They still require probable cause for the rest, it's an exception made for DUI only and as far as I'm concern, I'm ok with that.

Now the funny part.... our procedure looks rather radical but sentencing is a joke here for DUI. So yes, it's very very hard to get away BUT your sentence will make you laugh real hard.... But most lawyers are even smarter and will make a plea bargain right away because prosecutors have better things to do than build cases for drunk peeps.
 
manny78 said:
The law was amended under the last government because DUIs were becomming a plague. There's no problable cause required so technically, one cop car could stop you and make you blow. However, they usually just set up old fashion roadblock. I've been stopped twice by unmarked cruisers. On both occasion it was 4am and they just asked me the usual papers and to step out and blow.

They still require probable cause for the rest, it's an exception made for DUI only and as far as I'm concern, I'm ok with that.

Now the funny part.... our procedure looks rather radical but sentencing is a joke here for DUI. So yes, it's very very hard to get away BUT your sentence will make you laugh real hard.... But most lawyers are even smarter and will make a plea bargain right away because prosecutors have better things to do than build cases for drunk peeps.
Click to expand...
Oh, you're Canadian. I didn't notice that before. Maybe the Canadians did this, but not in the US. I don't know anything about DUI's in Canada.
 
pdaddy said:
DON'T BLOW!!

Sounds like your g-friend actually though she's be below the limit though. She should never have blown on the road test. Any time you can put between the time you have your last drink and testing is valuable. They will use her first test result in court if you fight it. If this is her first chances are she will get it reduced to a reckless-op.
Click to expand...


not blowing increases the loss of your liscense by 6 months here. Plus its the same on your insurance. The field sobriety isn't suppose to be as accurate as the machine in the cop shop. The one in the shop is calibrated regularly, their car units arent' as frequently. I'd tell her to get a lawyer and fight it. I would think she would win and wouldn't need to plea down to a lesser charge. I'm no lawyer, maybe heatherrea could help you out.
 
HeatherRae said:
LOL @ Samoth and myway, 2 of my favorite peeps.
Click to expand...
This I DO know:
People get pulled over and try to fake a medical condition to get into an ambulance instead of a police car. They don't blow..... but the police DO follow us to the hospital and get blood='s Drunkin' gandy gets SCREWED! Lol.
 
myway said:
This I DO know:
People get pulled over and try to fake a medical condition to get into an ambulance instead of a police car. They don't blow..... but the police DO follow us to the hospital and get blood='s Drunkin' gandy gets SCREWED! Lol.
Click to expand...
LOL...yeah, I would advise against that stunt. LOL
 
To make a long story short:
Don't drink and drive. EMS workers are sick of picking up dead people because someone got a little 2happy at happy hour. Everything is a bundle of fun until it's your kid or granny or YOU mowed over by a drunk. Please, peeps. Think about it. I had to deal with a dead 30 year old with a 3 month old son(he was driving home from work when his car was hit by a drunk driver, I remember the look on his wife's face as she walked into the ER ....with her baby) and 2 dead teenage girls(also hit and killed by a drunk driver) just in the last two weeks. It pisses me off. And the 2 19 year old boys(3 weeks ago) that died because they were running from the police. Drunk, in a stollen auto, but 2youg to die, IMO. I like work security but not like this.
On a lighter not, if this thread goes on for much longer, HeatherRae is gonna get a stress fracture from all of the typing.
 
HeatherRae said:
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you have to meet the elements of the crime. In the state in which I used to practice, you have to show that they operated a vehicle (vehicle was so loosely defined that it could have been a damn horse), on a road (I'm paraphrasing for simplicity), while impaired.

I had a client once who was arrested for a DUI second and driving on a DUI suspended license. The facts of the case were that a tenant on her fiances property called the police because they had some words about the tenant not paying the rent. The client was outside the house of the tenant, so drunk that she could hardly walk. She was planting flowers and tidying up the yard with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and her car parked in the yard with the door open. The test results at the station were inconclusive because the air sample was not large enough. The cops listed this as a refusal. I had the case completely dismissed because of the following:

1. My client alleged that she didn't begin drinking until after she arrived and started tidying up the yard. No one saw her drink before she drove the car.

2. She only drove the car through a large field that connected the fiances house and the tenant's house. Therefore, she didn't even operate a vehicle on the road.

3. The inability to get a sufficient sample was because she had asthma. They should have offered her a blood test and failed to do so.

4. She asked to be able to speak to me before questioning and before the administration of the test, and they refused.

I pointed all this out the prosecutor and told him he was wasting his and the court's time and effort. He was the one who made the oral motion before the court to dismiss the case. He did so at the preliminary hearing. The facts simply could not support the elements of the offense.

I love talking law...lol.
Click to expand...



wow you get me all excited when you talk law...... :p
 
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