Drunk driving allegations are quite serious in Maryland. They can threaten you with jail or prison time, large fines, and license suspension or revocation. They can even cause extensive damage to your reputation and affect your ability to obtain and maintain a professional license. In other words, you’ve got a lot at stake when you’re accused of DUI, so you should take the matter seriously.
This means building a strong criminal defense that puts your interests first. There are a number of Dui defenses that may be available to you. Field sobriety tests, including in the one-legged stand and the walk-and-turn tests, can be fraught with errors. Police officers may give improper instructions, improperly read test results, or fail to follow standard procedures. The same holds true of breathalyzer tests, meaning that you can challenge this evidence in hopes of minimizing its impact on you.
Another defense option that may be available to you is arguing that the traffic stop in question was illegal to begin with. If this was the case, then any evidence gathered after that stop is inadmissible in court because it has been illegally obtained. Therefore, if you can show that the police officer who stopped you didn’t have reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop, then you might be able to prevent evidence from being used against you.
These evidentiary issues can be highly technical and fact-specific. Therefore, if you’ve been accused of drunk driving, you need a personalized approach to your criminal defense, not a cookie cutter one. The good news is that an experienced criminal defense attorney will know how to spot prosecutorial weaknesses, which may include police officer bias, inappropriately administered field sobriety tests, and illegal actions by law enforcement. Hopefully with the assistance of one of these legal professionals, you can aggressively advocate your position and secure an outcome that allows you to avoid most, if not all, of the penalties hanging in the balance before you.