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Hi and thanks for visiting our website. This is Terry O'Malley, criminal defense
attorney, and I want to visit today about driving under the influence
and driving while ability impaired. You know, both of these charges
begin with the same scenario. It's usually a police officer pulling you
over as you've been driving down the road,
or approaching you if your car is parked in a parking lot, or along the street, or
maybe...
...in bad cases you're parked in an intersection or at an accident scene.
One of the first things that you want to remember is: In order for a police
officer to pull you over if you're moving in traffic,
they need to have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. That's a very low
standard and so
they're entitled upon you over if they have any evidence whatsoever that you
might be committing a crime.
This might include something like weaving in the road, or failing to signal
before you turn.
Once they pull you over they've now got to meet a little bit greater standard, and that's
a probable-cause standard;
probable cause that you're committing the crime of DUI (driving under the influence) or DWAI (driving while ability impaired).
So, in order for them to establish this probable cause,
they want to get you talking and they want to get you moving, and so they're
doing anything they can
to get you to do something verbally or physically
so they can make observations, take notes that they are later going to include in
their police report
to gain a conviction against you. One of the first ways they do that is they come up
to your car and they start talking to you, and they ask you: "Do you know why I pulled you
over?"
They might ask you for your insurance card, and proof of registration as well.
And they're going to watch you and see how your manual dexterity is -
that's something we commonly see in the reports. The next thing they're going to
ask you to do is to complete some voluntary roadsides for them.
Now these are huge and I want to place emphasis on the word "voluntary,"
because the police aren't going to tell you (although they should)
They're not going to tell you that these are voluntary roadsides. They're going to
ask you to step out of the car and come to the back to the car,
and perform some roadside tests for them. This is when you need to say: "No thank
you, I'd rather not do that."
And it's important that you know the distinction between the voluntary
roadsides,
and then the breath or blood test that later on
is required - something that you have to take. You see what happens is if an officer
feels like they've got sufficient evidence or probable cause
that you've committed a crime
of DUI & DWAI they can arrest you and take you to the police station.
And once they do that, they then can ask you - or will require you
to complete a breath alcohol test, or blood-alcohol test.
Now you can do that either way, you can do that by using the
Intoxilyzer machine, and breathing into the tube, or you can do that by
having a blood test drawn.
Either way your blood alcohol content is going to be determined,
and that's kind of a scientific way of determining whether or not you are in
violation of laws related to driving under the influence,
or driving while ability impaired. But, I want you to understand
most from this video is that the road sides are voluntary,
so say "no." There's no reason to give the police an opportunity to make further
observations of you,
or to say that you failed standardized testing if you don't have to.
And you simply don't have to do that: Those roadsides are all voluntary,
so please always say "no thank you," be polite to the officer,
even if they want you to get out of the car, go ahead and do that, but don't agree
to do those voluntary roadsides.
Next, if the officer feels like, based on your driving,
and maybe your recovery of your driver's license, and your insurance card, and
may be based on your voice - whether you're slurring your words,
that they have probable cause to arrest you, they can do that. And you've got to
be real calm and cooperative, because those things are all going to be noted
in the police report. And then what you want to do is go with them. When you get to
the police station,
you need to go ahead and take that blood or breath test.