When you are facing DUI (driving under the influence) charges, you could end up in jail, lose your license, and face other collateral consequences like increased insurance rates and potential loss of any driving-related jobs. Beating the charges against you might be just what you need to keep out of trouble and retain your freedom, and there are many ways to put up a strong defense to DUI charges.
Our lawyers can fight drunk driving charges in a few ways that usually come down to denying the prosecution evidence to use against you and challenging the actual facts they can present. For example, we can reduce the evidence available to them by challenging the way it was collected, potentially getting some of the evidence suppressed from an illegal search or thrown out for bad testing. We can also present facts that challenge the government’s claims, potentially creating enough reasonable doubt to win the case against you. If all of that fails, certain plea deals might be available to reduce the severity of your penalties.
For help with your case, call the Salt Lake City, UT DUI defense lawyers at Overson Law at (801) 758-2287.
Getting Evidence Thrown Out in Utah DUI Cases
If you can deny the prosecution access to evidence, then they might not have enough proof that you did anything wrong to continue with the case against you. Many people might think of these tactics as relying on technicalities, but many of them truly focus on using the Rules of Evidence and your constitutional rights to prevent the government from trying to get one over on you. It stops police and DAs from using the justice system in unfair ways to obtain unfair convictions.
In trying to win the case against you, our Utah DUI defense attorneys might be able to use the following tactics to get evidence against you barred:
Suppression for Illegal Searches and Seizures
Police must follow the rules for the evidence they seize to be useful in court. When they violate your rights, the evidence and information they obtain can be “suppressed,” which means the judge will bar them from using it in court. This stops police from unfairly benefitting from illegal searches and seizures, and it is one of the best ways to block evidence from being used against you.
Police cannot stop you without “reasonable suspicion” under the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Terry v. Ohio (1968). This means they need some articulable facts explaining that a crime has occurred before they can pull you over and investigate it. This means they have to have seen you swerving or running a red light or otherwise doing something strange before they can stop you.
Stops at DUI checkpoints work a bit differently, and they are usually allowed as long as the police publish proper notice of the checkpoint and follow certain procedures about which cars to stop.
If the police want to arrest you and charge you with DUI, they need “probable cause” to do so. This is a higher standard and requires more evidence that you committed a crime. Once they arrest you, they can perform a search incident to arrest, inventory your bags and personal items in jail, and tow your car to inventory it as well. This can allow them to get additional information against you, but it still requires probable cause, or else all of that evidence should be suppressed.
Rules for Scientific Evidence and Expert Testimony
Most states have Rules of Evidence in place for when scientific evidence can be used. There are two common standards called the Daubert or Frye standards, but Utah actually uses a separate test called the Rimmasch test after a 1989 Utah Supreme Court case, codified under Rule of Evidence 702 for “Testimony by Experts.”
Rules dealing with expert testimony and scientific evidence are a bit complex. In short, this rule requires that the science behind the evidence is reliable, had enough information behind it, and was applied reliably. They also need to make a threshold showing under Rule 702(c) that the science presented is acceptable to “the relevant expert community” before the evidence can be used.
Rule 702(b) can apply to block unscientific evidence like field sobriety test results. There is no scientific standard behind these tests, and they cannot be presented as “passed” or “failed,” as this – scientifically speaking – does not have a standard. This also applies to proper testing procedures for blood and breath tests, blocking evidence from being used if the test was not performed properly.
These rules also block so-called “experts” from testifying in certain cases if they cannot be certified as experts under Rule 702(a). For example, a police officer might be blocked from testifying about how drunk you were if they did not have training and experience in identifying drunken behaviors.
Challenging Facts for DUI Charges in Utah
If you are charged with driving under the influence, the government needs to prove their case. This means that the facts they present to the judge or jury need to be believed “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Fortunately for defendants, this is a friendly standard and only requires us to provide that reasonable doubt to win the case. Reasonable doubt can come from a few different places and areas of testimony:
Challenging Facts About the Stop
If the police claim that the traffic stop went down one way, but they are simply skewing the truth or even lying, your testimony can challenge that assertion. If you do not want to testify, you might be able to have other people who were in your car testify.
However, the best way to challenge the officers’ testimony is with video from their body cam, their car’s dash cam, or your own dash cam or cell phone video of the stop. If you have the thought to record the stop and the police do not force you to stop filming (which is often illegal for them to do anyway), then we can use this evidence to counter their claims about what happened.
Facts Not Meeting Legal Definitions
The government needs to prove each element of the case. This means showing that you were driving and that you were drunk. However, if we can provide evidence that you truly were not drunk – such as our own independent testing results – that could end the case. They also have to prove you were driving, and proof that you were just sleeping it off in your car might undermine that claim entirely, especially if your keys were not at hand to possibly be driving.
Call Our DUI Defense Lawyers in Utah Today
For help with your DUI case, call the West Valley City, UT DUI defense attorneys at Overson Law at (801) 758-2287.
