What Happens When You Get Pulled Over For a DUI
Depending on what exactly occurred, you’ll basically have two things that are going to happen in your case. Either we’re going to fight the case, and that means going forward with a trial and letting the judge decide whether you’re guilty or not guilty, or we work out the very best negotiation that we can. It really depends on the circumstances and the issues that we may have legally, the legal issues and factual issues in the case.
For instance, if the officer didn’t have sufficient reason or probable cause to pull you over, that’s a very good issue for us. They have to be able to justify pulling a person over and then delaying them in their travel, and from there, they have to have a good reason to suspect the person was intoxicated or is driving while intoxicated or in physical control of the motor vehicle while intoxicated. Often times, that will be followed by a field sobriety test that they do, and in most instances, they will have you perform three.
The first one being a horizontal gaze and nystagmus test, where they ask you to follow the pen or their finger with your eyes and then walk in turn and one legged stand. And depending on how you do on this test, they will proceed to a preliminary Breathalyzer test, which will be done on the scene. Or they’re simply arrest you, take you to jail and then you have the choice of either doing a blood or breath test. And depending on the result of those blood or breath tests, you may be charged with a DUI.
Some potential issues here, we have in Nevada what we call a two hour law.
And that states that law enforcement has within two hours to draw blood or conduct a Breathalyzer test on an individual within two hours of establishing that they were driving an actual physical controlled motor vehicle. If that blood or breath test occurs outside the two hours, then we have a very strong argument that those results should be suppressed in the court.
How you perform on the preliminary breath test can be used against you, but the most important factor is the blood or breath test that is done at the jail. The field sobriety test, there are any number of reasons why a person might fail or do poorly on those tests, but not be intoxicated. So we really need to look at the police reports and see what issues may exist in either fighting the case or negotiating.