DUI Arrest - Do You Need a Lawyer

A DUI arrest usually occurs in the following manner:

You are out for drinks with co-workers or you have gone to dinner with some friends and had a few drinks.  You decide to drive home, and a police officer sees you weaving down the road or speeding up and slowing down for no reason.  He turns on his siren and stops you for suspicion of driving the the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

First, the police officer will ask if you have been drinking and then ask you to step out of your car.  Make sure you remain calm and respectful; belligerent behavior will come back to haunt you.  The officer will ask you to perform a roadside sobriety test.   This may include being asked to walk a straight line, to stand on one foot, to tilt your head back and spread your arms and to touch your finger to your nose.   If you choose to perform the test, make sure the conditions are to your favor.  Ask the officer to be very specific about the tasks you are to do, and ask to do them in a lit area on flat ground.  If you can not do the tasks, the officer will take you back to the police station (this is not yet an arrest).  He may ask you to perform a breath test in his police car; it's best to refuse this and wait until you arrive at the police station to perform any further tests.

You can also choose not to perform the roadside sobriety test, which many lawyers recommend because you can fail it even if you are sober.  If you do not want to perform the tasks that the officer requests, politely tell him that you refuse.  At this point, he will arrest you and take you to the police station.

Once at the station, either because you refused the roadside test or you performed it and failed, you will be given a choice between taking a blood test or a breath test.   It's usually better to opt for the breath test because the results are not as reliable.  And by waiting to take the test at the police station rather than in the police car, you buy time.  Your blood alcohol content (BAC) will have increased by the time you arrive at the police station, and a good defense attorney can argue that there is no way of knowing what your BAC was at the time you were stopped.  If you refuse to take either a blood test or a breath test, in most states your driving license will be immediately revoked.

If you choose to take the blood test or if you take the breath test and are over the legal BAC limit, then you will be booked and processed for DUI.  Your information will be forwarded to the district attorney's office who will determine whether or not to prosecute you for drunk driving.  This is when you will need a good DUI lawyer.  Penalties for driving under the influence are serious, so you need a competent legal counsel on your side to mitigate your punishment as much as possible.  This is not a time to go it alone.

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