Driving Under the Influence (DUI)

A DUI charge can cause major disruption in your life. Because of political pressures brought to bear on the system, DUI has become a very expensive and time-consuming charge to deal with correctly.

DUI Arrest

There are many ways to attack a DUI case. The first question your attorney needs to answer is whether you were stopped legally. This threshold question may offer a quick way out of the process. The benefit of showing that the police violated the law at this stage is that it can prevent unfavorable evidence from being presented. Unlike most other areas of criminal law, however, the burden of proving an illegal stop is on the defense.

In a DUI case, the State must prove that because of the introduction of alcohol into his or her body, the Defendant was intoxicated while driving. Georgia law allows a prosecutor to prove a person intoxicated in one of two ways: 1) by proving the person was driving while intoxicated to the extent he or she was a less safe driver or 2) the person was driving while having a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or greater.

Depending upon which theory an officer arrests an individual for the offense of DUI, DUIs can be quite subjective and depend in large part on a police officer's observations of the person arrested. The first observations normally noted by a police officer are driving facts. That is, the officer's reason for pulling a person over. A police officer cannot simply stop a person because he wants to. There must be a legal justification for doing so.

The second observations concern the suspect's appearance and attitude. Most people arrested for DUI can soon expect to hear that the officer found they had red, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and an odor of an alcoholic beverage about their breath. Officers also note whether a person was dressed neatly, fumbled for their driver's license, and other such matters.

Police officers make most of their observations while conducting Field Sobriety Tests (FSTs). These tests are supposed to help the officer determine whether a person has their "normal" faculties. For example, balancing on one leg while counting to thirty supposedly tests whether a person's physical faculties, balancing, and mental faculties, counting, are normal. A minor fault on a test such as this can result in an arrest for DUI. Police officers must conduct each test in a specific manner. Not following proper procedure can lead to invalid test results. It is important to have an attorney familiar with the process through which a person suspected of DUI is asked to perform these tests.

The fourth set of observations in a DUI is a breath or blood test. In Georgia, police use the Intoxylizer 5000 to measure a person's blood alcohol content. Again, proper procedures must be followed to insure a valid, legally admissible test. These procedures must be followed both during the test, and in maintaining the machine prior to the test. Proper maintenance and operation of the machine includes many factors. For example, persons with diabetes often have a high amount of acetone in their systems. Therefore, such persons can produce a false positive result on the machine. There are other useful ways of attacking the testing procedures and the machine itself.