Charged With DUI? How Will a DUI Lawyer Defend You?
If you’re charged with driving under the influence – DUI – in the Denver area, you’ll need help from a Denver DUI lawyer. You must retain a lawyer who has extensive experience handling driving under the influence cases and extensive knowledge of DUI testing and DUI law.
How will a Denver DUI defense attorney handle your own DUI case? That will be determined by the circumstances of your arrest and the details of the charge. After meeting with you, your attorney will develop a defense strategy that is appropriate, aggressive, and effective.
Affirmative defenses (which concede that the evidence supports the charge but claim a defendant should nonetheless be acquitted) are rare. More often, a DUI lawyer will dispute the results of a blood or breathalyzer test, a police officer’s observations, or the constitutionality of the arrest.
What Defenses Are Considered Affirmative Defenses to DUI Charges?
Although affirmative defenses are rare in driving under the influence cases, depending on the details of your own case, your Denver DUI lawyer may offer one of the following affirmative defenses:
- Duress: This defense prevails when your lawyer persuasively argues that you drove under the influence because you were under duress. For example, you were forced to drive at gunpoint, or you were fleeing with the belief that your safety was in danger.
- Entrapment: If a police officer asks you to drive under the influence, and that officer then arrests you for DUI, it’s entrapment, but your lawyer will also have to argue that you wouldn’t have been driving under the influence except for the alleged entrapment.
- Involuntary intoxication: If another person slipped alcohol into your food or drink, and you didn’t know it, it may be appropriate to offer the involuntary intoxication defense.
- Mistake of fact defense: This is the defense if you honestly believed that you were not intoxicated. This defense may be proper, for example, if you believed the intoxicating effect of a drug prescribed by your doctor had faded enough to make it safe to drive.
- Necessity: The necessity defense claims that you “had” to drive in order to prevent a greater evil. Your lawyer must prove that you had no other option and that the “greater evil” prevented was worse than the danger posed by driving under the influence.
What Defenses Are More Common?
However, in most driving under the influence cases, a Denver DUI defense attorney will present one of the following, more common defenses to a DUI charge:
- You were improperly stopped: This is the claim that the police did not have sufficient probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop you in traffic.
- Your rights were violated: If this defense is offered, your attorney must present testimony and/or other evidence that the police violated your civil rights, falsified a DUI report, or otherwise acted unlawfully.
- The breathalyzer results were inaccurate: A DUI lawyer may dispute breathalyzer results and ask if the test was properly conducted, if the device was properly maintained and calibrated, and if the officer who administered the test was properly certified and trained.
- Your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level was rising: This is the claim that your BAC level was under the legal limit while you were driving but increased before you took the breath test. This can happen because alcohol takes time to reach the bloodstream.
- You weren’t the driver: Questions emerge in some DUI cases about who was actually driving the vehicle. Especially if the police arrive at an accident scene, and they did not observe anyone driving, the question may be difficult to resolve with certainty.
Charged With DUI? Contact an Attorney at Once
If you’re charged with DUI – even if you’re guilty as charged – you still must be represented by a Colorado DUI lawyer who will protect your rights while arguing for the best outcome to your case. Your lawyer can negotiate for a reduced charge and reduced or alternative sentencing.
Of course, if you are innocent of the charge, you should contact a DUI defense lawyer immediately. It’s important to select a lawyer that you like and trust, because your freedom and your future will be in that lawyer’s hands.
Most importantly, do not plead guilty before you’ve consulted your lawyer, and do not try to represent yourself as your own lawyer. The law is too complicated, and too much will be at stake. Even a first-offense DUI conviction in Colorado can place you in jail for up to a year.
How Will Your Lawyer Help You?
Your lawyer will immediately launch an investigation of the case, review the evidence, speak to any witnesses, and prepare a defense strategy on your behalf. A conviction requires proof of guilt beyond any reasonable doubt, and your lawyer will cast doubt on the state’s case against you.
However, if the state’s case against you is compelling, and your conviction is certain, your attorney may negotiate a plea deal. In most DUI plea deals in Colorado, you would plead guilty to “wet reckless” and receive considerably lesser penalties.
But if you are innocent, and if the charge cannot be dropped or dismissed, you have the right to a trial by jury, where your DUI defense lawyer will explain to a jury what actually happened and ask the jurors to find you not guilty.
Let Attorney Daniel M. Murphy Defend You
If you’ve been charged with DUI in the Denver area, or if you are charged with DUI in the future, DUI defense attorney Daniel M. Murphy will bring his considerable legal experience and skills to your defense.
For nearly three decades, Daniel M. Murphy has defended clients charged with DUI and other offenses in Denver County and across Colorado. His impressive and lengthy record of victories on behalf of his clients speaks for itself.
Attorney Daniel M. Murphy will fight for the best possible resolution to your DUI case. If you are charged with DUI in the Denver area, now or in the future, contact the law offices of Daniel M. Murphy by calling 303-996-8998 at once to schedule a no-cost first legal consultation.
