Proving You Could Not Safely Operate a Motor vehicle
If you've ever been arrested for a DUI, have you noticed that you're getting hit with a hoard of questions related to where you were and how much you weighed, what you ate, how much you had to drink, and so on and so on and so on? What the police are doing is trying to build a case — right from the beginning — for the prosecutors to prosecute you for the DUI.
When you sit down with your DUI attorney, you get a feel for what type of information they took from you and how they might use that. Because an attorney, if they've done any DUI trials, knows precisely how the prosecutors will use that information.
What they're trying to do is trying to establish the elements of a DUI offense and the fact that you could not safely operate a motor vehicle. They're trying to help their expert when their expert testifies about your blood alcohol level when driving.
Factors like how much you ate, what you drank, when you stopped drinking, what type of drinks you were drinking, your body weight, your height — these are all essential details. The expert will need these facts to properly evaluate your blood alcohol level at the time of driving.
As you probably know, they're not getting your blood alcohol level at the time of driving, typically, unless they've got a checkpoint there. Then it's going to be closer to the time of driving. Still, most of the time, it's going to be anywhere from a half-hour, forty-five minutes to an hour — even longer sometimes — before the police are taking your breath at the police station or taking your blood at the hospital or police station.
Then the question becomes how they will figure out your blood alcohol level at the time of driving. Who cares what it was at the police station. You're not doing any driving at the police station. You did your driving on the highway. These are essential considerations for a DUI, and your DUI defense attorney must know the answer to many questions on your end.
Reviewing the Details of Your DUI Situation
When I sit down, I ask the client how much they drank, what they drank, when they ate, and did they drank on an empty stomach — because I know what the prosecutors are going to be looking at when they read the police report.
So, it's essential for me to get that information as soon as possible so I can start the process and think about if you have a certain blood alcohol level, whether that makes sense based on your height, your weight, how much you told me you had to drink, what you ate and what I know from twenty-five years of defending DUI cases in the Los Angeles courthouses.
So, these questions they're asking you are fundamental. If you're reading this page and looking into DUIs, you probably have a DUI already, but you're not trying to prevent a DUI. So, if you've got a DUI, you have a feel for what type of questions the police asked you, and bet your bottom dollars, they're going to try to use all of those questions to piece together a case against you. They're trying to help the prosecutor piece the case against you.
They're trying to help the expert, and they're trying to help themselves because when they get cross-examined by the defense, the police will want to point to some of the things they saw that made them think you were a DUI.
For example, if they ask you where you came from and you tell them you came from a bar, and they ask you how many drinks you had, and you tell them you had five drinks, they're already off to a good start in proving that you've drunk alcohol. There's a good chance you're intoxicated and really shouldn't be driving.
So, they ask you all those questions at the time of the arrest. They're asking you all those questions when they book you. They're trying to build their case right from the beginning.
These guys are trained to investigate and get the evidence to prosecute somebody for a DUI. You need your DUI defense attorney to counter-act them and get some defense information to the prosecutor and judge — and a jury if necessary — to defend you properly.