Posted September 20, 2011 in
Driving & Motor Vehicles by Arthur Buono
Comments
You’re driving. You’re sober. You’re stopped by police on suspicion of driving under the influence. You submit to a field breathalyzer exam and you blow 0.0. You’re arrested for DUI. WTF?
- At a DUI stop, your actions can make or break your day – and much more
- Police are looking for any sign of probable cause to believe you’re impaired
- You may feel fine, but a breathalyzer may tell a different story
DUI Stops a Minefield for Drivers
Something like this happened to a Naperville, Illinois man this summer. His story holds some lessons for anyone who gets behind the wheel and heads onto the highway. Listen up.
When you’re stopped on suspicion of DUI – whether you’re sober or have had a few – a number of things can go wrong, landing you at the police station. So what should you do to give yourself the best chance of leaving the scene by saying "good night, officer," and driving yourself home?
Matt Keenan practices criminal and DUI law in Illinois. We talked about what the man in the Naperville case could have done differently. For starters, the driver, whose blood alcohol level (BAC) was 0.0 after arrest, admitted at the stop that he had consumed alcohol that day. "You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t," Keenan says, about responding when asked if you’ve had anything to drink. "If you say ‘yes,’ you’re giving the officer probable cause to arrest. If you say ‘no,’ and you’re arrested anyway and it turns out not to be true, well, judges don’t like that."
So how should you handle that question? "The best thing to say is, ‘I’m tired, and I’d like to go home,’" says Keenan.
What about the field sobriety tests? "These are troubling," he continues. "You can be completely sober and fail the ‘walk-and-turn’ or ‘stand-on-one-leg’ tests. I’ve gotten an acquittal because jurors realized how hard it actually is to do these things. If you’re walking on the roadside, stumbling on a small stone will give an officer all he needs to see to arrest you.
"So you should politely decline to take these tests. This is especially important if you have any physical impairment to coordinated movement. Surgeries, anything like that, gives you good reason not to take these tests. Saying no is tough for most people because we’ve all been taught from an early age to cooperate with law enforcement and even admit our mistakes."
Keenan also says it’s important to realize that while refusing to submit to a blood alcohol test may result in a license suspension, that consequence is far less severe than failing a test. "The inconvenience of not having a license, and even getting points against your insurance, is nothing compared to thousands of dollars in legal fees and the penalties for a DUI conviction."
Regarding portable breathalyzer field tests, Keenan also points out that blowing below the legal limit doesn’t guarantee your release. "In Illinois now, even if you pass a breathalyzer exam an officer can still arrest you if there’s any sign you might be impaired or under the influence of drugs. Impairment could be caused by anything - you had a fight with your spouse, you have some medical condition.
"And now DUI/drugs is opening up a whole new field. For example if you’ve smoked pot within the last 28 days this will show in a urinalysis. If the prosecutor can get that evidence into your DUI case, at least some judges might take that as evidence of DUI at the time. This is getting very worrying and complicated and anybody who’s arrested for DUI needs a really good lawyer for damage control."
Our Naperville story has a happy ending – of sorts. The driver won a $10,000 settlement from the city, which publicized the arrest even though the breathalyzer cleared him. Something tells me though he’d give back the parting gift to have avoided all the grief and embarrassment in the first place. Hey, don’t drink and drive.
Art Buono co-authors the Lawyers.com blog.
Related Links: