| MYTHS |
REALITY |
| 1. If
you suck on a penny you will pass the pbt and
the police will let you go |
1. The
police will look at you closely and if they
suspect you have something in your mouth (gum,
candy, mints, penny etc. they will make sure you
take it out before they administer the PBT |
| 2. If
the police say you provided a "weak blow" on the
PBT it means your blood alcohol level was
actually higher |
2. The
PBT has a mechanisim that clicks to alert the
officer to tell a driver when to stop blowing.
The police will tell you to blow until the PBT
clicks. |
| 3. It is always better to
refuse to provide blood, or breath if suspected
of dui |
3. There are many different
circumstances including which state your license
is from, how much you had to drink, what your
were stopped for etc. that come into play in
each case. Sometimes a driver may be
better off refusing to provide evidence of his
or her b.a.c. and others it would be more
harmful to refuse. Refusals carry
additional penalties and under certain
circumstances the police can force a blood draw
despite a refusal. |
| 4. You
have to perform Field Sobriety Tests. |
4
Refusing to perform field sobriety tests is not
the same as refusing to provide a samle of your
blood or breath but your refusal may be used for
other reasons like showing probable cause for
your arrest. |
| 5. The
Police cannot lie to you and if they tell you
they will let you go if you take the PBT they
have to honor their promise. |
5.
Law enforcement is a competitive enterprise and
various courts have held that it is legal for
police to lie to suspects to obtain evidence and
try to get convictions. |
| 6. You always have to
consent to a search of your car. |
6.
Police need probable
cause to search your car. The recent case
of Arizona v. Gant affirms the expectation of
privacy that a person has in his or her car.
While police used to be able to arrest a person
and search the entire car after the suspect was
in custody, after Gant, generally police
searching incident to arrest must only search
the area within a suspect's reach prior to
taking him into custody. |
| 7. If
you pass all the field sobriety tests the police
will let you go. |
7. The
police know that
field sobriety tests are
unreliable and therefore if they suspect you are
driving while impaired, they will make you take
a blood or breath test regardless of whether or
not you pass the field sobriety tests. |
| 8.
Once you are arrested and in the back of the
police car it is a good idea to smart off to the
police, argue with them, or act angry or
intoxicated. |
8.
Chances are your
entire ride to the police
station and jail will be recorded on audio and
video. If your case goes to trial a jury
may watch how you acted after you were arrested. |
| 9.
If police don't observe you for 20 minutes
before your breath test you will automatically
win your case. |
9.
Automatically winning as a defendant does not
exist. There are always exceptions and
Courts often allow evidence to go to the
"weight" and not the "admissibliity" and courts
frequently find that even when there were
evidentiary errors at trial, the errors were
"harmless" meaning there will be no second bite
at the apple for a defendant. |
| 10. If your b.a.c. is over
.08 you have no chance of winning your case/
getting a not guilty verdict. |
10. Many rules come
into play in a DUI case including the reason for
the stop. While generally a higher b.a.c.
may be harder to win than a lower b.a.c. it is
not impossible to win high b.a.c. cases.
Attorney Griessmeyer worked on two cases in
California with another lawyer (as a law clerk
and associate attorney) one with a .26 b.a.c.
where the jury found the defendant not guilty on
all charges and another case with a .14 where
the jury found the driver was not dui-only that
the driver was over .08. Both cases
involved serious felony injuries in addition to
the dui charges. |
| 11. If
you have a b.a.c. less than .08 you cannot be
charged or convicted of dui/ OWI. |
11.
The prosecution gets two shots to convict a
defendant. They can either prove
that a driver had a .08 or higher at the time of
driving- this is called operating with a PAC or
prohibited alcohol concentration, or that the
driver drove in an unsafe manner as a result of
alcohol or drugs. While the prosecution
gets two chances to obtain a guilty verdict, a
defendant can only be punished on one of the
above, not both. Note that a refusal is
separate from both of the above. |
| 12. You
are better of lying to police and saying you
only had two beers. |
12. It
is never a good idea to
lie to the police.
You can get another charge of obtructing
justice. If your case goes to trial and
you said you only had two beers and your own
expert says that is impossible, it does not
help. Generally the best thing a criminal
defendant can do prior to and after arrest is
exercise their constitutional right to remain
silent. |
| 13. If you only drink
a small amount there is nothing to worry about
when getting behind the wheel. |
13. See number 10 above.
Also, any amount of alcohol affects judgment.
If you refuse to get behind the wheel after
drinking even one beer, you are guaranteed that
you will not get a dui, or hurt or kill someone
as a result of drinking and driving. |
