If you have been arrested for a DUI the clock is already ticking. For a chance to keep your license, you must request a hearing with the Drivers License Division of the Utah Department of Public Safety within 10 days of your arrest. Failure to do so will almost guarantee that you will lose your license for at least 120 days. If this is not your first DUI or you are under the age of 21, the suspension will be more lengthy.
But, if you call or come to the offices of an experienced DUI defense attorney we will be able to forestall the automatic license suspension. We will discuss your case and then immediately submit a request for a hearing to the Utah Department of Public Safety. We understand that DUI charges can be extremely distressing and that they can significantly disrupt your life including your ability to get to work. Therefore our experienced attorneys work with you each and every step of the way.
For a free review of your case, call Overson & Bugden’s DUI defense lawyers today at (801) 758-2287.
Understanding the Legal Process for DUI Charges in West Jordan
The proceedings for a DUI offense in Utah requires proceedings in both the Driver License Division of the Utah Department of Public Safety and in the Utah courts. Generally, the first step in a DUI proceeding in Utah is the arraignment where a judge will read aloud the charges against you. Following the reading of the charges, the judge will ask how you plead: guilty or not Guilty. If you plead guilty, a sentencing hearing will be scheduled. The punishments could include fines, jail time, drug or alcohol education courses, and additional restrictions on your right to operate a motor vehicle.
However, if you plead not guilty to the charges, then the matter will be marked for a future pretrial conference. The handling of the pretrial conference can significantly impact the outcome in your DUI case, and therefore, it is important that you have experienced representation. Your attorney can request a jury trial, schedule a hearing to move to suppress improperly obtained evidence or negotiate a plea bargain.
Overview of How Our DUI Defense Lawyers Can Help in West Jordan
Once we are retained to represent you, we obtain all the discovery materials in your case. These include the police report, the toxicology results, BAC results, video of stop and arrest, any witness statements, and any other materials that are related in any way to your particular case. We are experienced in determining whether there are additional materials out there that might help your case and how to obtain them. We review all materials before we advise you on your case because you must be aware of all possible defenses before you can make an informed decision as to how to proceed.
The legal process as it impacts your driver’s license is often confusing to people because in order to keep it, you must win your driver’s license hearing at the DLD in order to keep your license while the criminal case is pending. If you win your criminal case, your license will not be suspended. If it was previously suspended, the DLD will reverse the suspension.
However, the DLD moves relatively quickly against your license, and the criminal courts move quite slow in comparison. That can result in you having the suspension even if you eventually win your case. That is often a frustrating situation for people. To avoid this situation, we frequently appeal the DLD suspension and stay or stop the DLD suspension order from taking effect. Few criminal defense attorneys in Utah take this extra step to protect their clients’ rights.
DUI Penalties and Fines in West Jordan
The consequences of even a first-time DUI-conviction can be extremely harsh as even first-time offenders are required to install and use an Ignition Interlock Device (IID) for eighteen months. A BAC reading greater than .159, even if it is your first DUI, is considered an Aggravated DUI and requires supervised probation and random alcohol and drug testing.
Following your first DUI penalties escalate rapidly. For a second DUI within 10 years, you could face a 2-year license suspension, up to $1,850 in fines, up to 10 days in jail, probation, and/or alcohol and substance abuse evaluation and treatment.
Your third offense within 10 years is considered a felony under Utah law. As a felony, the potential penalties are even more draconian, potentially including a 2-year or more license suspension, up to $9,250 in fines, a mandatory 62 days jail with no option for community service, and, if you are sent to prison, you face up to five years there.
Additionally, since it is a felony, the conviction will remain on your criminal record potentially affecting your chances at future employment. Further, your auto, health and life insurance premiums are likely to significantly increase. In fact, your auto insurance could even drop you as a high-risk driver. In any case, you are likely to pay hundreds, if not thousands, more per year just for auto insurance.
Common Defenses to DUI Charges in West Jordan
If you have been arrested and charged with drunk driving or drugged driving, then your primary question right now is likely how you can get out of these charges and what our DUI defense lawyers can do to stop them from putting you in jail or taking away your license. The defenses available vary greatly from case to case, but the following are some of the most common issues our lawyers look at to help our defendants fight DUI charges:
Fighting the Traffic Stop
For DUI charges to be valid in the first place, they have to be based on a traffic stop that was legal. If the police had no legal grounds to pull you over and interrupt your driving, then any evidence they found during the traffic stop is inadmissible and must be suppressed. The same is true for any evidence obtained down the line from that stop, such as arrests, blood tests, and information from post-arrest questioning.
For a stop to be valid at a DUI checkpoint, the checkpoint needs to be properly set up and administered. This means they needed to have posted information notifying the public of the checkpoint, and when they stopped you, they had to follow the rules for administering the stop. They could not pull you over because you merely “looked like” the kind of person to commit a DUI or for any racial or ethnic biases.
Without a DUI checkpoint, the police need to have stopped you because they witnessed another offense or because they had reasonable suspicion of this offense. When stopping you for another offense like speeding or running a red light, they cannot begin investigating you for DUI without some kind of evidence pointing to that, such as slurred speech, open beer cans in your car, etc. To stop you without another offense and pull you over under suspicion of drunk/drugged driving, the police officer needs to point to factors like slow driving, swerving, constant braking, the fact that they saw you leave a bar before driving to indicate drunk driving, or the odor of burning marijuana coming from your car along with other factors indicating drugged driving.
Fighting the Arrest
Police cannot arrest you for DUI unless they have sufficient proof that you were, in fact, committing the crime. This level of proof is known as “probable cause,” and it usually comes from a mix of evidence.
Police can build probable cause through things they observe, like slurred speech, the odor of alcohol on your breath, dangerous driving, confusion, trouble retrieving your ID and documents, and more. They can also use admissions, such as your statements that you were coming from a bar or that you had three drinks. They can also use evidence of your poor performance on field sobriety tests or a positive result on a presumptive breath test.
However, you do not have to answer questions, you can decline field sobriety tests, and you can decline a pre-arrest breathalyzer test. They can require you to take a blood test after arrest, but pre-arrest evidence can easily be denied to help stop the police from being able to form probable cause.
If they arrested you without probable cause, then the arrest, subsequent testing, and interrogations, as well as the charges, must go.
Fighting the Blood Test
Blood tests are hard to have thrown out. First, the police need probable cause to arrest you, then they need to get a warrant from a judge. If a judge signs off on the warrant, you have to give them blood or else face penalties. This is hard to challenge retroactively unless the arrest was illegal. However, we can challenge mistakes in taking the blood – such as using an alcohol-based swab that could throw off the results. We can also challenge testing problems, such as contamination or bias at the laboratory.
Fighting Interrogation Evidence
If you were interrogated after arrest, the police need to read you your Miranda rights and warn you that you have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. At that point, you should state out loud that you want to take advantage of those rights. Say that you will not answer any questions and that you want your lawyer present.
If you did not do this and you started divulging information they want to use against you, they usually can use it. However, that information all has to be thrown out as evidence if they failed to read you your Miranda warnings before interrogating you while you were in their custody or if you demanded your lawyer or your right to remain silent and they continued to question you anyway.
Other Evidentiary Fights
All of these challenges have primarily come under the umbrella of “suppression.” That is, police are required to follow the law and respect your 4th Amendment rights when investigating crimes, and the penalty to them for violating those rights is that the evidence gets “suppressed,” meaning they cannot use it against you at trial. However, other bits of evidence can be thrown out for other reasons under the Rules of Evidence.
For example, hearsay is inadmissible, so if the police were tipped off about your driving, they cannot say what someone else told them; they have to bring that person into court to say it themselves. Additionally, scientific evidence must meet accepted standards, meaning that novel or unique field sobriety tests outside of the “standard” tests might not be viable scientific evidence. Additionally, the officers’ observations must consist of observed facts alone, not opinions based on the application of scientific principles they are not trained in – e.g., they cannot give an expert opinion on how you performed on a field sobriety test they were not properly trained in administering or opine on the blood test results without medical training.
Our West Jordan DUI Lawyers Can Help
For a free case evaluation, call (801) 758-2287 to speak with the DUI defense lawyers at Overson & Bugden today.
