When faced with a DUI, DWI or OWI in Washington, D.C., a good criminal defense attorney will challenge the prosecution’s case at every possible step along the way.
First, the lawyer might challenge the legality of the stop itself. In other words, why did the police officer pull the driver over to begin with?
Second, the attorney might challenge the police officer’s observations and subsequent decision to further detain the driver on suspicion of DUI, DWI, or OWI.
Third, the lawyer could challenge both the process for conducting any field sobriety tests, if administered, and the results.
Fourth, the lawyer might challenge any breath, blood or urine tests if administered, again focusing on both the process for administering the test and the test results.
Fifth, if the suspect refused to take a test, the attorney could challenge the voluntariness, and thus the admissibility in court, of any such refusal as a possible admission of guilt.
Sixth, the lawyer will explore the possibility of some type of “diversion” program for the defendant, particularly if the defendant is a first-time offender.
Finally, the attorney will work on a separate track with the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles to prevent the driver’s operating privileges from being suspended or revoked.
Today’s post focuses on the first step in this process: the initial car stop.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. A car stop qualifies as such a seizure under the Constitution. Thus, in order to pull the driver over to begin with (in other words, to infringe on the person’s liberties by “seizing” him or her), the police officer is required to have either reasonable suspicion or probable cause of some time of criminal activity.
Police officers will often rely on a violation of the motor vehicle code as the constitutional basis for making the stop. The violation might have to do with the operation of the vehicle (the person was speeding, for example, or made an illegal turn). Alternatively, the violation might have to do with the registration, licensing or characteristics of the vehicle (the car had an expired registration or was missing a brake light).
While such violations, if true, are valid reasons for making the initial car stop, a good criminal defense lawyer can challenge the police officer’s underlying observations and subsequent decision to stop the vehicle. There are often valid reasons for, say, switching lanes or crossing the double yellow line. Without radar, it is difficult to accurately gauge the speed with which a particular vehicle is traveling.
While police officers usually speak with great authority about the motor vehicle code, sometimes lowering their voice when they cite specific sections, they are in fact sometimes unfamiliar with the actual provisions. In other words, despite their training, they can sometimes get things wrong and what may have initially appeared to be a valid arrest could turn out to have been an illegal one. If so, the criminal defense attorney will litigate a motion to (1) quash the car stop as a violation of the defendant’s constititutional rights and (2) to prevent any evidence collected by police after the illegal arrest from being introduced against the defendant at trial.
A good criminal defense lawyer will seek to establish illegality at the earliest stage possible in the stop, arrest, and testing of the defendant. If the court agrees and grants a motion to suppress, the prosecution will be precluded from using any evidence gathered after the illegality (results from a field sobriety or breath test, for example) against the defendant at trial. Without that evidence, the prosecution has no case.
Next up: Challenging the police officer’s observations after the stop and his/her decision to further detain the driver on suspicion of DUI, DWI, or OWI.