Articles Posted in DMV Issues

Each case can present its own unique elements. Part of what can go into achieving a successful result is spotting those unique elements and using them to your advantage. Perhaps the police officer who encountered you did not do a proper job giving you a required admonition. Perhaps the officer did not even give you the admonition at all. All of these things can potentially be used to your benefit. An experienced San Francisco DMV attorney can advise and represent you in using your case’s facts to get your driving privileges back.

A case from Santa Clara County offers an example of how this can work. Police responded to a midnight single-vehicle accident. Once there, they found a badly damaged Porsche SUV and a driver exiting the vehicle who appeared to be “extremely unsteady on his feet.” The driver allegedly smelled like alcohol, had slurred speech, and seemed disoriented. The officer attempted to conduct a field sobriety test that involved asking the driver to follow the tip of his pen with his eyes, but the driver simply closed his eyes.

There are many good reasons to, as a driver whom the police potentially suspect of driving under the influence, refuse to participate in a field sobriety test. One of these reasons is that officers do not always perform the tests properly. An improperly conducted test can yield incorrectly skewed results. Once you participate, the officer can testify in court about his or her impression of your performance on the test.

There are many things that can derail your legal case. Your case may be unsuccessful because you don’t have enough factual evidence on your side. Your case could also be unsuccessful because of procedural deficiencies. One of the most preventable ways to fail is because you decide to handle your case yourself, and you make procedural errors that you could have avoided with representation from an experienced California DMV attorney. Achieving a successful result in your license suspension case, or any type of legal matter, involves more than just knowing the facts of your case and being able to present them. It involves having a familiarity with the procedural rules of your case and making sure that you follow them.

The case of one East Bay driver serves as a useful story of caution on this point. The case began when a local police officer in Antioch responded to the scene of a two-vehicle accident and identified what he believed was alcohol on the breath of one of the drivers. The officer also thought that that driver’s eyes appeared bloodshot and watery. The driver, Michael, told the officer that he’d last had alcohol more than five hours before the accident, when he’d had two drinks with vodka in them. He indicated to the officer that he’d been awake for 21 hours.

Michael underwent a blood test some 2½ hours after the accident. The test yielded a BAC of 0.08. The DMV suspended his license. After Michael elected to have an administrative hearing, the hearing officer upheld the suspension. The driver took his case to the trial court but was still unsuccessful. He appealed to the Court of Appeal, but once again the suspension was upheld. Significant parts of what plagued Michael’s case on appeal came down to procedural problems, which can be a common shortcoming when people decide to handle their own cases without legal counsel.