A Defense of the DUI Law Practice
Every DUI lawyer has faced the question “how can you face yourself in the mirror in the morning, knowing that you are defending drunk drivers who might cause injury or death to innocent men, women and children? Wouldn’t we all be better off if drunk drivers lost their licenses permanently and were left to rot in jail for months or years?”
Persons accused of driving under the influence garner little sympathy, especially those with multiple offenses. How can any lawyer want to get a repeat offender off on a technicality?
Here is how I respond:
First, the goal of any reputable criminal defense lawyer is to investigate to determine whether the state (in the form of the police officers and the prosecutors) have done their job according to the law. In the American system, criminal prosecutions are adversarial in nature, meaning that the state’s attorneys (the prosecutor) and the defense attorney are on opposite sides.
Our founding fathers recognized that representatives of the state have significant resources and built in authority when appearing before juries. Such power can be abused if not held in check. Unfettered police power can turn a free society into an authoritarian one. History has shown that when agents of the state can enter people’s homes at will, detain them indefinitely, and incarcerate without critically analyzed evidence, personal freedom disappears. We can both support the hard work and bravery of policemen and women while at the same time demanding that these officers take care to collect and store evidence properly, advise the accused of certain constitutional rights and engage in a certain baseline of appropriate conduct.
How does all this apply to a DUI case? Take a look at this informative article about blood alcohol testing kits in Georgia from respected Newnan, Georgia DUI defense attorney Alan Trapp. Alan discusses the blood collection kits used by state and county police forces in Georgia and the potential for false results because of stale preservative or a defective seal. Now imagine that you consumed one beer at dinner and were randomly stopped at a DUI checkpoint. Further assume that the DUI kit used by the local police officer was contaminated with a yeast called Candida albicans that began to ferment when blood was added. Further assume that there was insufficient preservative in the test kit. A properly calibrated kit might have shown your blood alcohol content at .03, well below the legal limit, but the contaminated kit yielded a result of .09.
In this scenario, a DUI conviction would wrongfully land you in jail for two or more days, a fine of up to $1,000, a possible loss of your full driving privileges for up to a year, 40 hours of community service, probable loss of insurance coverage, and dramatically increased insurance renewal rates.
In truth, because of the contamination neither you, the arresting officer or the prosecutor would really know exactly what your blood alcohol level was at the time of arrest. That uncertainty is called “reasonable doubt.”
Now imagine that you retained a smart lawyer like Alan who was able to obtain physical evidence and testimony from the arresting officer that convinced a judge or jury that the blood alcohol test kit was contaminated, thereby resulting in an acquittal.
Now this does not mean that every DUI arrest can be successfully challenged, and conversely there may be some guilty drivers who get off because of bad evidence. If the stakes are your personal liberty and a huge financial burden, don’t you want the state to have to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Don’t you want a procedure in place where you can argue against your guilt to an impartial finder of fact?
So, the next time a friend or relative opines that criminal defense attorneys are no better than the defendants they represent, think about how you would feel if you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and your lifestyle was at risk.
Carmen Rivera:
June 1st, 2010 at 4:11 am
I support criminal defense attornies defending DUIs. My problem with lawyers in this field (including prosecutors and judege) is that you all don’t have not even a rudimetary level understanding of how science and medical science works. For example I’m from NJ where the Alcotest was deemed reliable by a former judge despite the fact that it has to be continually ajusted to get law enforcements desired results. In science you have to prove accuracy by accompanying every test with a blood test for 5-10 years to prove accuracy. The judge acknowledged that at least 1 medical illness inflates the results but no one than questioned that if one illness does inflate results there must be others.(There are) And when that same judge ruled that an officer has observe for belching, hiccups etc. and another judge said the officer didn’t have to be in the room for the obsevation for the full 20 minutes no lawyer had the wherewithall to produce a dictionary and point out that the word observe means to watch and you can’t watch if you’re not in the room. I could go on and on. I beleve you are all what the french call “dominante professionelle” It’s a profional who specialty is used for everything. Teach someone to use a hammer and he’ll hammer everything. What’s required before law school is educational training in how sciece and medicalscience work, an understanding of the meanings of words, mathmatics and psychology.
David Bauernfeind:
July 26th, 2010 at 3:24 am
I strong agree with the underlying article — I do not believe that there are any “technicalities” when it comes to our Constitution and its rights allowed each and every one of us. As a DUI attorney in North Carolina I too am often defending the work that I do.
I also disagree with the previous comment that a DUI attorney somehow needs some sort of advanced scientific training in order to properly prepare a case. Quite the contrary, you are arguing your case before either a judge or jury — neither of whom (probably) have advanced knowledge of the science behind the DUI case. Certainly not to say that one doesn’t do the legwork and acquire the knowledge necessary.
Michael Edwards:
August 19th, 2010 at 1:13 am
To those who believe that a criminal defense attorney’s role in a D U I case is anything other than an absolute necessity, are delusional to say the least. As the North Carolina attorney stated, i do not believe that anything that has a bearing on a judicial proceeding can be called a “technicality”. Even if a technicality was the only means for a defendant to obtain a favorable judicial outcome, and someone saw it as somehow an inappropriate interpretaion of the law; I can with absolute certainty guarantee, that if a known criminal was on trial and the only way the prosecution was able to obtain a desperately needed guilty verdict for the safety of the public was by way of a techinicality, that the same person wouldn’t have a damn word to say about it then would they ?! Aside from that point, you could argue that to disagree with a criminal defense attorneys role in the courtroom, would be to say that men and women that make up our police force are somehow more than just that, men and women. Men and women that are only human and are just as capable of making mistakes as you and I. And that there should be no system in place to make light of these mistakes, when it no longer affects their personal life, but instead has a bearing on the life of another. …..I myself was recently charged with Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, in which the drugs were not cocaine or methamphetamines, but instead were a pain reliever prescribed by my doctor; and had it not been for me answering the officers questions honestly, he would have remained unaware that I had even took my medication. Since i did answer honestly, the officer decided that he would base the charge on the fact that if he had took the prescribed amount he would have been impaired by, leaving no room for the possibility that tolerance to the prescription over time would make me a lot less impaired than it would someone such as himself who was not on the same treatment. And for the record, the original stop was only for speeding.(and not excessively i might add) So because that officer , on that particular day, decided that he didn’t quite like my demeanor, that means that i have to be subjected to the full measure of the legal systems predetermined consequences. Well excuse me if I feel a slight relief at the thought of having a criminal defense attorney on my side, when i have to go up against an opponent as formidable as the State of Georgia!……………..P.S. If anyone knows of a good criminal defense attorney serving in the Greater Savannah Area in Georgia, i would greatly appreciate it if they would be so kind as to refer me to them so that i may have the opportunity to aquire their services and have a fair chance at defending myself in court. Any responses before the end of 2010 will be greatly appreciated.