It would be a good idea to contact an attorney as soon as possible if anyone was going through a situation where they felt like they had been charged with a crime. Mr. Sloan is available to answer any questions.
Do People Commonly Utilize Their Constitutional Right To Remain Silent Before Coming To An Attorney?
A lot of people tend to say one thing or another, because most people tend to be open, honest, and forthcoming with the officers. Unfortunately, they do not teach people these things in junior high school, high school or college. The person might be taking a class that talked about constitutional rights but it does not tend to stick with the general population.
Most people don’t know they could refuse field sobriety tests, or that they should not have answered any questions. People are not aware of their rights and they generally tend to not care about what their rights are until it is too late, they have already been arrested and they were dealing with the consequences, because then they would see the problems and that they had already hurt themselves because they were open, honest and agreed to do the field sobriety tests.
This does not seem like something most people want to retain because I have had repeat clients who I had represented the first time, but they ended up getting arrested for a second DUI. In this case I know they had my business card and they were aware of the “dos and don’ts” upon getting arrested but they forgot to look at the card and ended up admitting to everything.
What Can A Police Officer Legally Do In Terms Of Search And Seizures?
The officer would need to have reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle, and they now have a better ability to do that by citing any kind of innocent behavior that they interpreted as being non-innocent behavior, as long as they could pinpoint some reasonable suspicion.
Some officers feel they need to invoke their community caretaking function because they believe a traffic violation might have occurred or a crime might have been committed. Once they believed there was reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle, they would place themselves in a position where they might be able to notice other types of potential crimes in order to gather a new reasonable suspicion to believe someone might have been driving while under the influence or they were in possession of some sort of drugs or weapons.
The officer might even find out if the person was on probation for something or if they were driving on a suspended license. This kind of situation really opens up the officer’s ability to get themselves involved with people’s lives so people would not be free to do what they normally would or go about their normal lives and perform their routines.
In my opinion, a ruling like this from the Arizona Supreme Court does significantly lessen the constitutional rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Arizona Constitution.
What Are Common Reasons People Give For Getting Subsequent DUIs?
Some people cannot help it, because they take their prescription medications but still need to drive and live their life. It would not be their fault they became sick, although unfortunately their medication could sometimes impair them so it might be viewed as something that may have impaired them when they did some odd thing while driving, so the medication would be blamed for their traffic violation and it would become a DUI case.
Some people are alcoholics, whereas some people just never learn their lesson. Subsequent offenses would be much harsher, and then there are felony offenses which can be much worse. I have had clients where I was able to get the case completely dismissed on a legal or factual technicality or whatever it might be. We are sometimes able to go to trial and get the jury to find the defendant completely not guilty, but then they would be charged with another DUI a year later.
It does not seem to make a difference whether or not someone was able to get off from the case, get away from punishment or whether they actually had to go through all the punishment associated with the DUI, because some people just do not learn their lesson which is why they end up getting much harsher charges. The person would be lucky if they did not get charged with a felony on their second offense, because by the time most people hit their second offense, it would be a felony and they would be looking at anywhere from 4 months up to 3.75 years in prison.
What Percentage Of People Get Arrested For A Second Offense DUI?
This is actually not all that common. Around 1 or 2 percent of clients who I represented for a first time offense actually get a second time offense.
I have spoken to people who had multiple prior DUIs, sometimes up to 10 prior DUIs, and the police report would show that they still answered all the questions. At that point they surely would have known that what they had said in their past cases had hurt them, but they still answered the officer’s questions. They seem to not realize that maybe they should have invoked their rights instead of answering the questions because it tends to not be ingrained in people that they should utilize their constitutional rights.
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