I went into more detail on this over at my main Tampa DUI Attorney website, but this is just too silly not to mention again. Florida lawmakers are proposing a DUI rewrite that would make it a per se Drug DUI if you drive with drugs or drug metabolites in your urine.
The language is as follows:
The person[would be DUI] if they have in his blood or urine a substance identified as a Controlled substance in Level II, Level II, or Level IV, or one of its metabolites or analogs.
So what does that mean exactly?
To best illustrate, take the following example:
Tommy smokes pot. Tommy is fat. Tommy is inactive.
Tommy smokes Marijuana frequently until he gets put on probation on February 1st, 2012 for… possessing pot. Then, Tommy has to quit cold turkey. He does not want to fail a drug test and get carted to jail for violating his probation.
Weeks later, Tommy feels great. He is clean. He is most certainly not under the influence.
But Tommy is probably violating the law according to the Statute. In fact, if Tommy’s urine showed trace amounts of marijuana or marijuana metabolites, he would be guilty (per se law, so a Jury would have to find him guilty absent a jury pardon) of DUI. He would violate his probation. Tommy would probably go to jail.
Why? Well, Tommy’s urine is going to show a break down of Marijuana for quite sometime. He is a big boy, and all that THC from the Marijuana is getting stored in his fat. It will be weeks or more before it is broken down because Tommy is inactive. In fact it may be up to 6 weeks or more and he will still be showing metabolites in his system.
Does that make any sense?
Under category: Uncategorized | February 16th, 2012 | No Comments »
Could you fail the breathalyzer test even if you have had nothing to drink? If you are a type I or II diabetic, the answer, according to a Jamaican policy study, is yes. DUI lawyers, beware.
The Jamaican Study
An independant health consultant at the Jamiacan Department of Parclinical Sciences recently published a stud conlcuding that some diabetic citizens were falsely convicted of DUI when they were not impaired by alcohol. The study concluded that diabetics whose insulin levels had dropped were likely to exhibit wobbliness and other signals that Jamiacan police confused with impairment. Then, when taken back to the Station and given a breath test, the defendants often failed the test even when they were not impaiured by alchohol. Eight of the studies diabetic participants who “failed the breath test” immediately had there blood tested for alchohol. As previousy discussed in this DUI blog blood testing is the most accurate way to determine blood alcohol levels, not breath tests.. Of those Eight, Four of the participants, or 50 percent, passed the blood test. That is an astronomically high failure rate..
It’s the Insulin, Stupid
The problem with diabetics and breath test machines has to deal with insulin. Diabetics have insulin deficiencies, requiring supplementation to mantain proper glucose levels in the diabetic. If the insulin level drops enough, then the body starts goig into ketosis, and ketones are released into the body. One particular keytone is a molecule called acetone. Acetone is present in all people to a small extent, but can be present in concrentations that a hundreds of times higher than a normal person in a diabetic who needs insulin.
Breath Test Machine Can’t Tell the Difference Between Ketones and Ethanol
Now, breath test machines measure molecules in the breath. The machine is looking for ethanol molecules. How does the machine recognize molecules? It has to do with passing light through the molecule and measuring the wavelength of light that results. Ethanol it turns out, has a wavelength of 3.4 microns. So, the machine, in part, looks for the amount of these microns and then calculates a breath test number.
But there are hundreds of chemicals in the human body that have the same wavelength. So the problem is that the machine is capable of mixing up other molecules with ethanol, or having false positives. One such molecule is acetone.
So, in the diabetics who need insulin, the acetone seems to be misinterpreted by the machine as ethanol. Then, the machine will spit out a number that is false and too high. As a result, you have false readings, and, in the case of the Jamacain study, false convictions.
If you are a diabetic and you failed a breath machine after a DUI arrest, it would be wise to consult with a DUI Lawyer to discuss if your breath results are wrong. Clicl here read the full Jamaican breath test DUI study.
Under category: Uncategorized | September 2nd, 2011 | 1 Comment »
A Full Service Criminal Defense, DUI, and Family Law Firm, located off Main Street in the heart of New Port Richey.
Denmon & Denmon Trial Lawyers, 5703 Main Street, New Port Richey, FL 34652, 727-753-0049
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Under category: Uncategorized | November 16th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The truth be told, how you act and react during the couple of hours you interact with the arresting officer can make all the difference in whether you beat the DUI or not. So without further ado, the 3 most important things you can do to help your Defense Attorney beat your DUI.
First, a forewarning: If you are in anyway a close call when the cop investigates you, rest assured he will arrest you. Any DUI Lawyer or Criminal Attorney will tell you that the Officer is going to error on the side of caution. Consider: if the officer decided to let you go, and you were DUI, and you did then hurt someone, that Officer would lose his job and be vilified in the press. This of court leads us to rule Number one in beating a DUI:
1. Be Nice. Be Respectful. Be courteous.
It does not matter how sober or how drunk you are, if you act like a dummy in front of the cops, you will get burned. Ultimately there are a million factors that go into whether or not you can beat your DUI, but rest assured the most important thing is that you act like a gentleman on tape. Think about it: The person who has control over whether or not to reduce your charge to a reckless driving , or throw your butt in jail, is the prosecutor. The prosecutor will always review the video evidence before making a decision on how to proceed. If you look like a jerk, the prosecutor will have no sympathy for you. I have seen it time and time again, the prosecutor giving the reckless driving to the nice respectful person on the close calls, but not bending on the close calls for the jerks.
Further consider: If you go to trial, what version of you do you want the Jury to see? Juries are human. In every case, Juries are looking for the good guy, and the bad guy. Do you want to be the good guy that they feel sympathy for, that was unlawfully arrested by an over aggressive cop (the bad guy)? Or do you want to be the jerk client who made the cop’s life difficult, thus making the cop the good guy by process of elimination? The answer should be obvious.
2. If you think you are slurring your speech, then shut up! Only say yes sir and no sir.
The Jury will use its collective common sense in determining whether or not you are drunk. Ask any jury member during jury selection, “How can you tell if someone is intoxicated?”, and either there first or second answer will be , “slurred speech”. It goes hand and hand with being drunk. Therefore, if you might be slurring your speech, even if it is because you are tired, then shut up. Note this rule goes well with rule number one above, being respectful and courteous.
Alternatively, if you are right on, and are able to be articulate, then feel free to speak on the camera. but beware, many clients tell their DUI Lawyers that they were just dandy on scene, but th evideo suggests otherwise. Be sure.
3. If you really only had a beer or two, consider blowing into the breath test machine.
Many people think that they should refuse the breath test machine at all costs. This is not entirely accurate. Understand that the State has a very powerful, very legal argument if you refuse: That you did so because you had a guilty conscious, and knew you were guilty. This is very powerful indeed. Therefore, if you truly had only a beer or two, you may consider blowing into the machine. That will remove the argument from the State, and hopefully provide evidence for your DUI attorney that you were under the legal limit. Also, if there was a technical issue with the Machine, your defense attorney can present the issue if you have chosen to blow into the machine. If you have not blown, then any deficiency with the machine becomes irrelevant.
Alternatively, you may be the type of person who does not trust machines at all costs. This is fine, but consider letting the cop on scene know WHY you are not blowing.
Hopefully this will help you help your criminal attorney when you go into his office the day after your arrest.
Denmon & Denmon Trial Lawyers, 918 W Kenendy Blvd, Tampa, FL 33606, 813-554-3232
If you need to contact a DUI Attorney, feel free to contact Christian or Nicole Denmon.
Under category: Uncategorized | November 16th, 2010 | No Comments »
Often, clients ask our Tampa DUI Lawyers about the possibility of getting their pending DUI reduced to a reckless driving charge. The reduced charge of reckless driving is often a possibility. However, while people often ask for the reduction, they are often unsure what the actual benefits are to receiving such a sentence. There are five main reasons that a Tampa DUI Attorney seeks to get your DUI charge reduced to the charge of reckless driving as part of a plea bargain.
1. It’s cheaper
DUI’s are expensive. The legislature has decided to impose massive fines on those convicted of DUI. The fines and court costs for a first time DUI are upwards of $1K. If the breath test was taken and the result was over a .15, the costs go up to $1.5K. A second DUI within 5 years of a prior DUI conviction will result in a 2.5K fine. And a third DUI within 10 years can result in a court costs in excess of 4K! These costs do not include probationary costs, which are between $50-$60 monthly.
A reckless driving charge does not carry with it these ridiculous costs. The fine is often as low as $500.
2. Less Social Stigma
Arguably the most painful part of being arrested for a DUI is the potential social stigma that it carries. MADD, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving, have helped spearhead a national movement vilifying drunk driving. Now, employers often ask specifically in employment applications if the applicant has ever been convicted of DUI, or driving under the influence.
A reduction of the charge to a reckless driving is a way to resolve the criminal matter without assuming the intense social stigma and ramifications that accompany a DUI conviction.
3. No mandatory license suspension
A DUI conviction requires the DMV to suspend your license for a minimum of 6 months for a first offense. But repeat offenders suffer harsher penalties. A second DUI conviction within 5 years a prior conviction requires a minimum five year suspension. A third DUI conviction within 10 years a prior conviction requires a minimum 10 year suspension. And a fourth conviction for DUI, regardless of the date of the prior convictions, is a lifetime revocation. This is required by law; a Judge must impose these sanctions.
A reckless driving conviction, however, does not require a license suspension. That means regardless of the number of DUI’s in your past, a reduction of your DUI charge to a reckless driving may keep you on the road.
4. No mandatory jail time
Jail time often accompanies enhanced DUI’s. In fact, a second DUI within 5 years of a previous DUI conviction requires ten days in jail. A third DUI conviction within ten years of a previous DUI conviction requires 30 days in jail. A felony DUI can be punished by up to five years in prison!
If your DUI s reduced to a reckless driving, no jail is required under the law, regardless of how many DUI’s are in your past.
5. No insurance premium increases
A DUI conviction will increase your insurance premiums. Florida Law, for example, requires every driver convicted of a DUI in the State of Florida to increase the amount of bodily injury coverage hey carry. This is known as a FR-44 form. This can get quite costly. A reduction of the DUI charge to a reckless driving may help you avoid being required to obtain these costly insurance premiums.
Call a DUI Attorney today
If you have been charged with a DUI in Tampa, New Port Richey, Clearwater, or St. Petersburg, contact a DUI Attorney today at 813-554-3232 (Hillsborough) or 727-753-0049 (Pasco and Pinellas). Ask to speak directly to a DUI Attorney. We are located at 918 W Kennedy Blvd. , Tampa, FL, 33606
Under category: Uncategorized | July 29th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
From Tampabay.com
” TAMPA — Actor Joseph Gannascoli, who played Vito Spatafore on The Sopranos, was arrested early Friday in Tampa on a DUI charge.
Gannascoli of East Rockaway, N.Y., was arrested at 3:05 a.m. at 3629 W Kennedy Blvd., just east of Dale Mabry Highway. His blood-alcohol level was listed as 0.111.
He was in Tampa for a public appearance for his cigar, the Cugine. Gannascoli was driving a 2010 Dodge sedan when he made a wide right turn onto Kennedy Boulevard from Armenia Avenue, according to an arrest affidavit.
After the turn, the report states, he started to straddle the lane marker. He kept driving and straddled another lane marker before a Tampa police officer pulled him over. ”
—
The fourth amendment protects Mr. Gannascoli from unreasonable governmental searches and seizures. Our very constitution then requires that the police, as government agents, act reasonably when they stop, detain, or frisk citizens like you.
Tampa Police would be justified stopping Mr. Gannascoli in one of two scenarios: if they had probable cause Mr. Gannascoli committed a traffic infraction, or if they had reasonable suspicion Mr. Gannascoli committed a crime (DUI). A Drunk Driving Lawyer in Tampa can examine the case to see if there was a legal basis to stop.
To have probable cause that Mr. Gannascoli committed a “wide turn” or “failure to maintain a single lane” traffic infraction, Florida courts have said that Mr. Gannascoli must also have affected traffic by his driving. In other words, the traffic infraction must also have presented a danger to those around him.
To have reasonable suspicion that Mr. Gannascoli was committing the crime of DUI, the officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts that led him to believe Mr. Gannascoli was DUI, and not just changing a CD, talking on the phone, ect.
If the Tampa officer did not have reasonable suspicion of a crime or probable cause of a traffic infraction, then the stop may have been invalid, and the Tampa criminal dui lawyer for Mr. Gannascoli may be entitled to have the evidence in his case suppressed.
To read more about Mr. Gannascoli and his DUI arrest, click here.
Under category: Uncategorized | June 21st, 2010 | No Comments »
The cop stopped you for whatever reason, and smelled alcohol on your breath. He did his investigation and arrested you for DUI. In Hillsborough or Pinellas County, he took you back to “central breath testing”, observed you for at least twenty minutes, and finally, asked you to submit to a Breath Test. You cooperated. You blew into the machine. You could not speak to a Tampa DUI Attorney .
The results were high. Higher than a .08. Higher than the “legal limit”. A feeling of dread over takes you. Hope is lost, right?
Not necessarily. Because assuming for the sake of argument that breath test machine was working and got a true result, the resulting BAC could only be a valid measurement of the alcohol going through your veins at the time of the test.
But DUI is driving under the influence. It is not sitting in central breath testing under the influence.
How much time has passed between the moment the officer stopped you and the moment you actually blew into the machine? An hour? An Hour and a half? Two hours? Even Longer?
What is clear is that the more time that passes between the moment that officer seized you and the moment you blew into the machine, the more meaningless the results of the breathalyzer becomes. It has to do with the rate of absorption of the alcohol into the blood stream.
Alcohol does not enter your blood stream the moment you ingest it. Rather, it goes down to your stomach where it is slowly broken down and absorbed. The speed of absorption is dependent on multiple factors such as age, general health and fitness, metabolism, and the other contents of the stomach at the time of ingestion.
So there is a period of time after ingestion of a particular quantity of alcohol where your BAC steadily rises to its peak BAC. Then, as the body processes the alcohol, the amount of alcohol then lowers until eventually there is no more alcohol in the system. It generally takes around an hour after ingestion for alcohol to hit its peak BAC.
Imagine the following situation: A driver knows its last call, pounds a couple of beers, then gets in his car to drive to his home, five minutes away. That driver may have a BAC under .08 when he gets in his car. He may have continued to have a BAC under .08 as he drives home. He may have made it home and into bed with a BAC under a .08. However, his BAC may continue to rise after he got into bed, until it reaches a peak level that may have been in excess of .08.
What if that driver was stopped and ultimately arrested for DUI? If an hour passed between the time he was driving and the time the blows were obtained, his breath test results may be significantly higher than what they were at the time he was driving.
It is difficult to tell one way or the other. Your Tampa DUI Attorney may attempt to higher an expert in to try to quantify what the BAC would have been at the time of driving based on what the BAC was at the time of the blow. Alternatively, your Tampa Criminal Attorney may choose to dismiss the results of the test as unreliable because of the length of time between the driving and the breath results. That decision is one that must be made on a case by case basis, taking into account the particular facts of your case.
Under category: Uncategorized | May 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »
Client’s that agreed to give a urine sample after a DUI arrest are often fearful of what the pending results may show. While every case is different, we try to help the client understand three main reasons that the results of the pending urinalysis by themselves carry minimal evidentiary value.
1. Urine results are markers of what was once affecting the system, not necessarily what is currently affecting the system.
This is common sense, but it is often overlooked: a urine result is only a marker of what was once affecting the system, not what is currently affecting the system. Obviously, for a result to be in the urine, it has since been eliminated from the system. The prosecutor must prove to the Jury that your system was under the influence of the susbtance in question at the time of driving, not before. Your Tampa or Pasco Criminal Attorney must make the jury aware of this obvious fact.
2. The urine results are not usually quantified.
In most of the counties in Florida, they do not quantify the amount of the foreign substance in the urine. Without knowing the amount in the substance, it is impossible for an expert to draw a conclusion as to whether the defendant is under the influence or not.
3. It is impossible to draw a conclusion based upon an un-quantified urine result whether the person was actually under the influence of the substance identified at the time of driving.
Most of our clients are aware that, if one were to have a job interview coming up, he better make sure you were not around anyone smoking marijuana a month before the test. That’s because Marijuana metabolites can be found present in urine for up to a month after the body ingests the substance. However, the effect of marijuana, or the body being under the influence of marijuana, lasts for a matter of hours. This same principle applies to most substances that are eventually found in the urine. Cocaine, for example, only influences the body for a matter of hours, but can be found in the urine up to 72 hours after ingestion.
While this is all good stuff for your Tampa or Pasco DUI Lawyer to use during cross examination of the state’s toxicologist, it may be worthwhile to ask your DUI Attorney about employing a Forensic Toxicologist to test on your behalf. A good forensic toxicologist may be just what the Jury needs to understand that in your DUI trial, the urine results offered by the prosecution should not be given much evidentiary weight.
At Denmon & Denmon, our Attorneys have working relationship with top forensic toxicologists in the Tampa Area. If you have a DUI cases where a toxicology expert may be helpful in your case, call our office at 813-554-3232 and ask to speak to an attorney.
Under category: Uncategorized | May 11th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The police cruiser pulls in behind your vehicle, and the officer flips on his lights. You pull over. You roll down your window as the officer approached your driver side door. He asks you if you had anything to drink tonight. Then, he asks you to step out of the car. On the side of the road, he asks you if you would be willing to take his “Field Sobriety Tests”. The officer begins by reading you instructions for the “tests” and then demonstrates what he wants you to perform. The two psychomotor “tests” he will request you to perform are the walk and turn and the one-legged stand. After you perform, the officer will likely conclude that you failed his “tests”, and place you under arrest for DUI.
You retain a Tampa Bay Area Drunk Driving Lawyer. You fight your DUI. At trial many months later, the arresting DUI Officer will tell the jury that he knew you were driving under the influence in no small part because of your performance on his tasks. He will give great weight to the results of his walk and turn and the one-legged stand tasks.
But should a jury?
A Few Studies on Field Sobriety Exercises that every Pasco, Pinellas, or Hillsborough Florida DUI Attorney Should Know:
Preliminarily, understand that to have probable cause of a DUI arrest, a Florida DUI officer must reasonably believe that the individual he is investigating is under the influence of alcohol to the extent that his normal faculties are impaired by the alcohol. Normal faculties include the ability to walk, talk, judge distances, and drive a car.
So how does he do that? How does a DUI officer “quantify” impairment while on scene? What factors, or evidence, articulate that the impairment (if any) observed by the officer was the result of alcohol and not nervousness, injury, handicap, or just a lack of sleep?
A breath, urine or blood test to determine blood alcohol content is not an option. Under Florida Law, an Officer can only request that you take a breathalyzer test after he places you under arrest.
One tool that police officers have been using for the better part of a century can be classified as field sobriety exercises. Previously, they included such tasks as counting your ABC’s backwards and picking up a penny off of the ground.
Eventually, the National Highway Traffic Association, or NHTSA, started to look more closely at the Field Sobriety Tasks. It wanted to see if they could “beef up” the meaning of the Field Sobriety Exercise results. It wanted to turn the tasks into something more standardized, powerful, and reliability. It wanted to see if they could turn the tasks into scientifically reliable tests.
So in the 1970s, NHTSA funded a research project to study field sobriety tests. The studies evaluated whether or not field sobriety tests could predict whether subject was above or below a .10% BAC, the presumptive level of intoxication in California at the time of the studies.
Results of the 1977
Interestingly, NHTSA’s funded research first concluded that the alphabet test and finger to nose test were not recommended for use as sobriety tests because they did not add anything to the predictability of the subject’s influence by alcohol. It is therefore surprising that police officers continue to use both of these exercises today in DUI investigations, considering that the “bible” of Police Officer DUI training comes from the Student Manual published by NHTSA.
Even more interestingly, the officer’s participating in the 1977 study had an error rate of 47%! Of the 101 people that the DUI officer’s concluded were impaired, 47% of them had a blood alcohol content of less than .10 (the legal limit at the time).
So in 1981, NHTSA felt the need to try again. However, the results of this test were not the overwhelming results NHTSA had hoped for to conclude that the field sobriety tests were scientifically valid. Of the 118 individual arrested, 32% were had a blood alcohol content level of under .10.
In 1994, Spurgeon Cole, a clinical psychologist and researcher with Clemson University, performed a study on the Field Sobriety Exercises testing the hypothesis that completely sober people would find the exercises difficult to perform and, as a result, would be judged “impaired by alcohol” by officer’s viewing their performance.
In the Study, Fourteen police officers rated the performance of 21 individuals what had completed the field sobriety tests. The officers had a mean experience level of 11.7 years, and all had completed the state DUI training program and had field experience with DUI detection.
The participants consisted of 10 males and 11 females, between 21 and 55 years of age, with no known disabilities. The participants completed six different field exercises, including the walk and turn, finger to nose, and one legged stand.
The officers watched the performance on video. At the end of the video, all 21 officers were asked to determine, yes or no, if the participants were impaired and should not be driving.
The results?
Of the total of all the DUI officer’s decisions after viewing the participants’ performance in the field sobriety tasks, 46 % were that a participant had had too much to drink. Remarkably, only 3 of the 21 completely sober participants were rated as “unimpaired” by all the officers. Five of the 14 individuals were rated as having “too much to drink” by all 14 of the drunken driving officers involved. Clearly, not the results one would expect from a “scientifically reliable” test.
However, your arresting DUI cop will take the stand and will try to make the psychomotor tasks you took seem as reliable, standardized, and scientific as possible. It is important for your Tampa Bay DUI Attorney to make the appropriate pretrial motions to keep the cop from misleading the jury. If the officer still testifies in a manner that the Jury will view the tasks as scientifically reliable, then your DUI lawyer must be prepared to properly rebut the officer’s testimony at trial, using the very NHTSA manual that your arresting officer was trained on.
Under category: Uncategorized | April 26th, 2010 | No Comments »
Shortly after the police officer arrests you for DUI and handcuff’s your hands, he will ask you to submit to a lawful test of your breath, blood or urine. If he smells alcohol on your breath, and you’re not in the hospital, he is referring to a breathalyzer test. He will ask you nicely to take his breathalyzer test. If you decline, he will then inform you that if you fail to submit to the test requested of you, then your privilege to drive will be suspended for one (1) year for a first refusal, or eighteen (18) months if your privilege to drive has previously been suspended as a result of a refusal to submit to a lawful test of your breath, urine, or blood. He will then ask you to submit to a test again.
What does it mean if you say no?
First, as the officer said, if you refuse, then your license will be suspended for 12 months or 18 months, depending if you have declined to take a breath test before. This administrative suspension comes from the DMV, or the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and has nothing to do with your criminalcharge. If you have never refused to take a breathalyzer or other lawful test before, then you will be eligible for a hardship license in Florida after 90 days. Otherwise, you will be without a license for an entire 18 months.
Second, the refusal has potential ramifications in your criminal case should your fight your DUI charge. You may think that by refusing, you are not giving the State Attorney any evidence of your guilt. That is not correct. By refusing, you are not giving the prosecutor any evidence of what the Breathalyzer machine says your Blood Alcohol content is. So the prosecutor will not be able to argue that you a DUI because your blood alcohol level exceeds .08.
However, the prosecutor could still argue (and he will) to the Jury that your refusal to take the Breath test is evidence of your consciousness of guilt, or your “guilty mind”. In other words, the prosecutor can say that you didn’t blow because you knew that you were driving drunk. The prosecutor can further argue that 1. Driver’s licenses are vital and necessary to people’s everyday lives, and 2. Who would knowingly let their license be suspended for 12 months unless they were trying to hide something?
Fortunately, the prosecutor is limited in how far he takes this argument. For example, the prosecutor cannot go so far as to say that you could have proven you were not guilty simply by taking the test. Any statements that shift the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defendant is inadmissible in court.
What to do if I did not blow into the breathalyzer test?
It is imperative that your Tampa or Pasco DUI Attorney do three things:
- Try to keep out evidence of the refusal, if possible.
- If the refusal is admissible, then explain or offer reasons to the Jury that refusing to submit to a breathalyzer machine that you know nothing about is a reasonable decision given the circumstances, and
- Keep the State Attorney in check in how he argues the refusal to the Jury.
Your DUI Attorney may be able to keep out evidence of the refusal if the officer did not read the implied consent warnings correctly, if he misstated the law regarding the consequences of the refusal, or if he failed to advice you of the consequences of a refusal entirely. Some courts have suppressed evidence of a refusal when the arresting officer read the implied consent warnings properly but also read Miranda warnings around the same time. This is known as the “confusion doctrine”.
Your Drunken Driving Attorney should be able to explain to the Jury that, in America, every man or woman has the right to tell the Police “no” when they request something, like a Breath Test. Certainly, a reasonable person may choose not to blow into a machine he knows nothing about, in the hopes that it will magically convert the contents of his breath into the results of his blood alcohol level.
At the very least, your lawyer must keep the prosecutors arguments in line with what is permissible by law.
Refusing to submit to a breathalyzer is a perfectly reasonable response to the officer’s post arrest request. After all, you will not be un-arrested, regardless of the result of the test. However, it is important to have an experienced Tampa Bay, Pinellas, or Pasco criminal defense DUI lawyer on your side.
In Tampa: Denmon & Denmon 918 W Kennedy Blvd, Tampa, FL 33606 813-554-3232
Under category: Uncategorized | April 19th, 2010 | No Comments »
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