Many times I have clients come into my office that need help undertanding just what will happen now that they have been arrested for a DUI. Often people will call different law offices for advice. Only to forget the advice the minute tney leave the office. This article is not meant as legal advice and you need to hire an Attorney to go over the specifics of your specific case. I have helped over a thousand clients over 14 years of work. I do this job to help people get through what for most of them if some of the worst days of your life. Give me a call if you have questions after reading this article.
First, as in some of my earlier aricles where I go over the specific things the officer is needs for an arrest this will be much more general.
First you will obvioulsy be pulled over the officer needs reasonable suspicion to pull you over.
Or you could be ensarned in one of the so called sobriety check points.
IF YOU ARE ARRESTED
You will be given a ticket with a court date, and you will be given a temporary license. That license is good for a 30 day period, or until the completion of your DMV hearing.
now the thing to remember here is that you should think of the process as two prongs the court process and the DMV process.
You must make an appointment with the DMV within 10 days if you fail to do this you waive the right to a hearing. Even if you do not have an Attorney at this point make sure to at least schedule the hearing.
FIRST COURT APPEARANCE
Your first court appearnce date will be written on the ticket. On the front. Again this is separate from the DMV process.
Many people believe this first court appearnce is there trial. it is actually an arraignment. If you hire an Attorney you do not have to be personallly present for that hearing. Your Attorney can do what is called a 977 appearance. If the District Attorneys office has filed charges then you will have those charges read and you will enter a plea, or your Attorney will enter the plea for you.
PRE TRIAL HEARINGS
You or your Attorney will schedule a pre-trial hearing to gather the police reports, cameras, body cameras, the calibration logs, for all instruments used in the stop and or arrest. We will also gather call logs, and dispatch logs and begin to build our defense. We look over all the paperwork and procedures used by the police to make sure they used the proper procedure. The more mistakes the officers make the less sound there case is. Many times juries in DUI cases will aquit if the officer made to many mistakes.
I have tried many Murder cases where the officers have made sometimes literally a hundred different errors, and the jurors are willing to look past this and convict becuase it is a murder trial. It is not supposed to be that way but unfortunately it is. However, when an officer makes a lot of mistakes in a DUI case the jurors are much more likely to aquit. This is just the truth.
TRIAL
If you decide to go to trial we will set the case for trial and proceed to trial. Unlike your other appearances you must be present for the trial. I could write several blog post on the trial process, having tried more 5 first degree murder trials and having both prosecuted and defended DUI cases; however, those will have to wait for a different blog. If you have questions call me at 559-441-1418.
