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How A DUI Lawyer Can Help You With Your First-Time Charges

by Gene Vasquez

Were you recently pulled over, arrested, and charged with driving under the influence? If this is a first-time offense or your first time being in trouble with the law at all, you are likely feeling a bit nervous or worried about how this might all play out in court. For best results, you should look into hiring a local DUI lawyer to help you navigate the path ahead. Here's how the right DUI attorney can help you.

Protect Your Rights

Getting arrested for the first time can be an intimidating experience, and you might not know how to react or protect your own constitutional rights. Your attorney can review video or other evidence from the traffic stop to ensure that your constitutional rights were not violated. Your attorney will continue to protect your rights as you move forward with your case.

Analyze or Question Evidence

A DUI case often relies on the eyewitness testimony of the responding police officer, but there may also be a field sobriety test, including a breathalyzer test. You may have also been asked to take a blood test for further analysis of your blood alcohol level. Your attorney can review all evidence and may find that the evidence was not collected in the proper way, which may allow you to get some or all of it thrown out.

Develop a Strategy for Court

If you intend to fight the charges, your attorney can assess the evidence that will likely still stand up in court and come up with a defense strategy to push back against the prosecution. Developing a strategy for the courtroom with a lawyer by your side may improve your odds of winning your case when compared with going it alone.

Hire Expert Witnesses

One way you may be able to fight your charges in court would be to get expert witnesses to testify that the police made mistakes during the traffic stop or that the evidence collected was corrupted in some way. It's not likely you already know the leading witnesses in your area for this type of testimony, but a local DUI lawyer can likely reach out to exactly these types of potential witnesses for you and hire them to provide testimony in your case.

Reduce Your Charges or Penalties

Even if there is clear evidence of your guilt in this case, a good lawyer may still be able to get some charges thrown out or reduced. They may also be able to negotiate for lower penalties like getting you put into a program for first-time offenders that may be less severe than what would otherwise happen to you.

Contact a DUI lawyer for more information. 

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