RIVERSIDE COUNTY DUI DEFENSE LAWYERS
Driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs is a serious offense. It can affect your profession, transportation, automobile insurance, lifestyle and relationships with others, and, in some cases, could result in jail or prison. If you are charged with a DUI, it will be important for you to retain an attorney like STEPHEN R. BRODSKY who has a lot of experience defending and preparing WINNING DUI strategies for his clients!
In the state of California, you have the legal right to refuse to take any kind of sobriety test at the scene of your arrest. California law, however, does require you to take the breath or blood test for alcohol concentration after you have been arrested. As most police officers making an arrest in the field for a DUI tend to greatly exaggerate a suspect's performance on field sobriety tests, Riverside County Drunk Driving Defense Attorney Stephen R. Brodsky recommends that you decline to take any kind of sobriety test. This advice includes refusal to take the portable breath test, also known as the preliminary alcohol screening test (PAS), which police often pressure DUI suspects to take to try to build a strong case against them. Most people being investigated for a DUI are very nervous and anxious to cooperate with police officers. Most people do not want to get arrested and will do anything to avoid being arrested. Most police officers are highly aware and trained to take advantage of a suspect's willingness to cooperate and bully the suspect into taking the field sobriety and PAS tests---tests which strengthen the police officer's justification for arresting the suspect and later making the prosecution's criminal DUI case easier to prove. ATTORNEY STEPHEN R. BRODSKY FIRST URGES YOU NOT TO DRIVE ANY MOTOR VEHICLE AFTER YOU HAVE HAD ANY AMOUNT OF AN ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE OR MIND ALTERING MEDICATON! SECOND, IF YOU HAVE MADE THIS MISTAKE, ATTORNEY STEPHEN R. BRODSKY ADVISES YOU IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS TO NOT PERFORM ANY FIELD SOBRIETY TESTS, INCLUDING THE PRELIMINARY ALCOHOL SCREENING (PAS) TEST! Always treat the investigating officer with respect, politeness and courtesy, because this will encourage the officer to give you the benefit of a doubt.
If you are placed under arrest for a DUI in Riverside County, you are required under California law to give a chemical test of your blood alcohol concentration. As a practical matter, this means that you will either have to submit to a breath or blood test after you are placed under arrest for a DUI. As between breath alcohol and blood alcohol tests, the blood test rather than a breath test, will benefit you in the long run. Unlike a breath sample which is not preserved, your blood sample can be kept for a long period of time and tested later to help determine the following:
- Whether police followed the proper chain of custody when handling your blood specimen.
- Whether the proper procedures required by California law were in fact followed by police in obtaining and testing the blood specimen.
- In a retest of the blood specimen, whether a cross-match of the specimen and a specimen you gave to a forensic alcohol specialist shows that the blood tested was in fact your blood, and not someone else's blood. Big reason to get your blood re-tested by a private laboratory. If the police were sloppy and tested someone else's blood, we can expose this error and shut down the prosecution's case before it gets off the ground!
If you choose to give a breath test, remember that the breath specimen you blow into the breath testing machine evaporates and is lost forever! It cannot be retested. Many of my clients come in for a free consultation with breath alcohol test results much higher than the quantity of alcoholic beverages would have caused them to have. Your Riverside County criminal defense lawyer will need the assistance of a forensic alcohol analyst—a special expert trained in breath and blood alcohol testing—to carefully examine the breath testing machine's calibration and maintenance records, as well as the documentation of the officer who administered the breath test—to see if that machine was not operating in accordance with California law or the officer did not administer the test in accordance with the law.
In the State of California, if you score a .08% blood alcohol concentration or higher, your license will be suspended for a period of four months for a first time DUI or for a year or longer for multiple DUI's. REMEMBER YOU HAVE ONLY TEN (10) DAYS FROM THE DATE OF YOUR ARREST TO REQUEST A HEARING WITH THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES (DMV). You must retain an experienced Riverside County DUI attorney like ATTORNEY STEPHEN R. BRODSKY right away so that Mr. Brodsky will schedule the DMV hearing on your behalf and, if necessary, employ the services of an experienced forensic alcohol analyst or professional investigator who will interview witnesses with respect to certain DUI defenses such as the "Not Driving Defense." In this scenario, your criminal defense lawyer and his professional investigator will interview witnesses at the scene or alibi witnesses who put you at a different place at the time of the DUI defense. This defense can be particularly successful if there are no solid eyewitnesses as to who was driving the vehicle involved in the DUI investigation—most likely a vehicle involved in a collision where the police arrive at the scene of the accident and see the suspect and either wrongfully accuse him of driving or coerce him into giving an ambiguous and unclear statement that seems to be self-incriminating. A professional investigation with crucial witness interviews can easily turn this kind of a case into a winning defense strategy!
As in most other criminal cases, your criminal defense lawyer must be knowledgeable about constitutional and administrative law in DUI cases so he can determine:
- Whether the police had a lawful justification for stopping your vehicle or contacting you and police had a reasonable suspicion to detain you for investigation for driving under the influence.
- Whether the police had probable cause to arrest you for driving under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance.
- Whether proper procedures were followed in administering a breath or blood alcohol test to determine blood alcohol concentration.
- What motions to prepare and litigate in your behalf before and during your trial.
Your attorney must be skilled and experienced in the courtroom. If your case goes to trial, he must know how to cross-examine the officer who arrested you as well as the forensic alcohol expert who will testify for the prosecution against you. Your attorney must know how to prepare and examine the expert you may need to employ as a witness for your own defense. If your case involved a collision, your lawyer must know when to advise you to retain the services of an accident reconstruction expert. Finally, your lawyer must be experienced in preparing motions regarding the admissibility of certain evidence, in selecting the right kind of people to serve as jurors in your case, in presenting opening statements and closing arguments as these trial skills are necessary to build a WINNING DEFENSE STRATEGY!
The attorney that you hire should be someone who knows how to put on a WINNING DEFENSE STRATEGY in your DUI case. It is important that you make sure that the lawyer you choose is an experienced criminal lawyer who has a WINNING TRACK RECORD in defending people charged with a misdemeanor or felony DUI cases.
You must always be receive a free initial consultation with a criminal defense attorney in which you can explain what happened during your DUI arrest and the attorney can give you an intelligent evaluation of your defense against DUI charges. You should have prepared questions to ask the attorney regarding the facts of your case and his record of WINNING DUI cases for his clients. REMEMBER, DO NOT CONSULT WITH LAW FIRMS WHO TRY TO GIVE YOU A FREE CONSULTATION WITH A "CASE MANAGER" WHO DOES HIS BEST TO IMITATE A REAL LAWYER!
Stephen R. Brodsky, Attorney At Law, is one of the most experienced criminal defense lawyers in the Greater Los Angeles area. He has devoted more than 20 years of his life to practicing criminal law and has put on WINNING DEFENSE STRATEGIES for hundreds of his clients who have been charged with misdemeanor or felony DUI cases. Your record and your freedom are too important to entrust to an inexperienced lawyer. Immediately contact Stephen R. Brodsky, an experienced DUI attorney with a proven track record of WINNING DUI cases for his clients, so he can put his WINNING ATTITUDE AND EXPERIENCE to work for you! MR. BRODSKY CONDUCTS ALL OF HIS FREE CONSULTATIONS AND REMAINS ACCESSIBLE THROUGHOUT HIS CLIENTS' CASES BY GIVING THEM HIS CELL PHONE NUMBER!
IF YOU HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE (DUI) OF DRUGS OR ALCOHOL IN LOS ANGELES, LONG BEACH OR ANY OTHER AREA OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, CONTACT MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY FOR A FREE CONSULTATION WITH ATTORNEY STEPHEN R. BRODSKY. LET MR. BRODSKY START PREPARING A WINNING DEFENSE STRATEGY FOR YOU, TODAY! CALL US TODAY TOLL FREE AT 1-800-988-8409 OR CONTACT US ONLINE.