Before an officer can charge a person with driving under the influence they must have reasonable suspicion. There are several procedures or tactics that Florida law enforcement officers must use to prove that suspicion and if any of the results of these procedures are questionable, then a DUI Lawyer from Deltona can file a petition to keep these results from being heard by the court and possibly get their client’s DUI charges dropped or reduced.
Two of the most common sobriety tests used by Florida law enforcement officers are the roadside sobriety exercises and the breathalyzer test. The more questionable of the two is the roadside exercise test. No matter how agile you think you are, it is easy for someone who has not been drinking to fail these exercises. These not only test your physical abilities but your mental ones as well. Common questions may be to name all fifty states in alphabetical order or “walk the plank” or “walk and turn”. These are tests that put your sense of balance and equilibrium in question and if the conditions are windy or if the person being tested has balance issues then the results of the procedures can often be petitioned to be inadmissible in court by an experienced DUI Lawyer from Deltona. This is generally because most of the time you are only given once or two chances to “pass” the test and each time you fail the arresting officer makes a note of the failure. It is to your advantage to refuse to take these tests, they are not mandatory and your license will not be suspended because you refused and the fact that you refused can’t be used against you in court.
Another test is the blood alcohol content or breathalyzer. This state must prove that at the time you were driving, your BAC levels exceeded the legal limit, not one or two hours later. However, these results can be and have been proven to be questionable because of such factors as your weight, your rate of metabolism, how much you drank, how long had you been drinking and what as well as when you had eaten before being tested. If you are not tested immediately after being pulled over but later, then the state has to estimate what your BAC level was when you were stopped. You can also refuse this test as well.
Other less common procedures in DUI arrests that your DUI Lawyer from Deltona may be able to have suppressed from being used against you are non-compliance with FDLE rules, the order in which the officer you reads you the Miranda rights and implied consent warnings, violation of the twenty minute observation period law and being unable to prove actual physical control of the vehicle.
While it is not guaranteed that your attorney will be able to get these test results and violation of proper procedure suppressed in court, often times if the attorney is very experienced, they most likely are able to do so.
