Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Investigation

There is an abundance of circumstances that can lead to an arrest for a DUI / DWI in California. Maybe you and your date shared a bottle of wine at dinner and in your excitement to get back to your house a police officer pulled you over for speeding and detected the smell of alcohol on your breath. Or maybe you had one too many at a friend’s wedding and got stopped by a police officer when you failed to come to a complete stop at an intersection. Or perhaps you hit a sobriety check on the way from the beach over the holidays. The point is that a drunk driving arrest can happen to almost anyone at any time.

But just because you were stopped in your car does not automatically mean that the stop was legal and that the evidence of alcohol in your blood or on your breath is admissible as evidence against you in a court of law. In the United States, police need specific legal reasons for pulling your car over and conducting an investigation. If the police did not follow the law in stopping your car and during the ensuing driving under the influence investigation, then a qualified and experienced DUI / DWI lawyer should be able to get the evidence gathered against you during that stop and investigation suppressed. If your attorney can convince the judge to suppress the evidence, the prosecution will not be able to use the evidence against you. Without use of such evidence, the case is likely to be dismissed.

A lawful DUI / DWI investigation can be triggered by one of three events: Police observation of a law violation, police observation of a driving pattern so suggestive of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs so as to provide a reasonable suspicion that a crime has taken place, or a lawful roadblock or checkpoint. If none of these conditions are present, any evidence gathered during the traffic stop likely will be suppressed.

Did you know that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does not recognize speeding as a drunk-driving pattern? Therefore, if a police officer offers the fact that you were speeding as his reason for instigating a drunk-driving investigation, a skilled and experience DUI / DWI lawyer may be able to convince the judge to suppress the evidence gathered in that investigation.

Today in California, the courts have ruled that police officers are allowed to stop a car based simply on a tip from an anonymous caller who believes that that the driver of the car is somehow under the influence. However, this does not mean the police do not need to conduct themselves within the law. If they carry out an investigation that is not warranted based on what they themselves observe, a DUI / DWI attorney with experience and knowhow may convince a judge that the officer went beyond what the law allows and get the evidence suppressed.

A recent trend in the state's efforts to curb drunk driving is the sobriety roadblock or checkpoint. While these are legal methods of stopping a driver, there are strict rules that the police must conform to when operating a drunk-driving roadblock or checkpoint. If any of these rules are violated, a good criminal defense attorney may be able to have the evidence obtained at the roadblock or checkpoint suppressed.

Generally a person facing drunk driving charges in California faces two different charges, one charge is for driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs and the second is for driving with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08 percent or higher. This second charge is known as a per se violation. The per se violation means that if your blood alcohol content was .08 percent or higher, and the traffic stop and DUI / DWI investigation were legal, then the charge will be considered per se (by operation of the law) that you were too drunk to drive.

When one fights a drunk driving case, the prosecutor does not have a simple job in getting a conviction. There are several hurdles a prosecutor must get over before a jury can find beyond a reasonable doubt that you were in fact drunk while you were driving. It is important to remember concerning the .08 percent per se law that the case is not about whether at some point in the evening your blood alcohol level was .08 percent or higher, but rather whether your blood alcohol level was .08 percent or higher when you were driving.

Oftentimes a chemical test will be taken sometime after you were driving, many times an hour or more later. A skilled and knowledgeable DUI / DWI defense attorney can cast doubt upon a case by showing a jury that there is reasonable doubt whether a driver's blood alcohol level was in fact above the legal limit during the time the person was actually driving.

DUI prosecutions are generally driven by four different categories of evidence: Driving pattern, physical signs and symptoms, field sobriety test performance, and chemical test results. If there is an investigative failure in any one of these areas, the driving under the influence prosecution will be in serious trouble. The best way to fight a drunk-driving case is to consult with an experienced DUI / DWI attorney as soon as possible.

California DUI criminal defense lawyer Darren T. Kavinoky of The Kavinoky Law Firm has successfully defended hundreds of drunk driving cases by creating reasonable doubt in one or more of these critical areas of the prosecution. Contact Darren 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a free consultation.