Think your DUI is hopeless? Think again! This article will explore five major categories of defense tactics that you can discuss with your public defender or private attorney.
- Asserting your Fourth Amendment Right in relation to the Stop.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects you from unreasonable search and seizure. With a DUI, this often comes into play when the officer pulls you over for a traffic stop. The officer needs to have reasonable suspicion that you are committing a crime (a traffic offense counts as a crime for this purpose). The officer must have probable cause to arrest you. A defense based on the stop or the arrest is one of the most common and effective ways to fight a DUI, and an attorney can help you apply the law to the specific facts of your case.
- Attacking the Accuracy of the Field Sobriety Tests.
The officer likely performed the field sobriety tests near the street where he pulled you over, and the conditions may have interfered with the accuracy of the testing processes. Was there heavy traffic that distracted you or made the tests unsafe? Were weather conditions in play that may have impacted your abilities? Was the lighting poor or in your eyes? Was the ground uneven or dangerous? Were there other environmental hazards or distractions that may have impacted your ability to perform on the field sobriety tests? Aside from the environmental factors, the officer’s explanation and execution of the field sobriety tests can also be used to challenge the results. Did he explain the tests fully and accurately, and were they administered as they were supposed to be? Attacking the accuracy of the field sobriety tests is a very common, but can be a useful way to defend you.
- Undermining the equipment and methods used in testing.
In any test involving equipment, the equipment must be functioning properly and used properly in order to achieve a reliable result. For example, if a breath test was administered, you can question whether the equipment was in good, working condition and whether the officer was properly trained to use it. If you can undermine the fact-finder’s confidence in the testing, then you can draw into question whether the results can be relied upon. Along those same lines, you can question the method of the testing. For example, when did the testing take place? Was it contemporaneous to the driving or much later? The method of testing is as important as the reliability of the equipment itself.
- Chain of Custody.
Any evidence used in a criminal case has to pass muster when it comes to the chain of custody, which means the prosecution has to be able to trace where the evidence has been from the time it was taken into custody. For example, when police officers take a blood sample in a DUI case or seize evidence of drugs, the evidence will be packaged with a form and each person who comes in contact with the evidence should be noted on the form. If there has been a break down in that procedure, then you can claim that the evidence has been contaminated or tampered with and therefore the evidence is unreliable.
- Necessity, Duress, Entrapment, Involuntary Intoxication.
The affirmative defenses are not as commonly used because they require circumstances that are somewhat unusual. If your case falls into this “oddball” group of categories, the affirmative defenses may well suit you. The necessity defense is where you drove under the influence for a greater good – for example, to race someone to the hospital to save a life. Duress is when you are forced to drive under the influence under threat of your life of safety, such as if you drove while intoxicated because someone threatened to kill you if you didn’t. Entrapment very rarely arises or if it does, it would be difficult to prove, but an example would be where the police officer requests that the person drive while intoxicated to “set the trap” to arrest that person Involuntary would be where someone was given drugs or alcohol without their knowledge or consent.
