Birmingham Building a Second Offense DUI Defense

Getting charged with a second DUI can bring tougher penalties to the accused than the first DUI. If you have received your second DUI arrest, make sure you contact a lawyer immediately. It is important to have an experienced attorney who could help your situation by building a Birmingham second offense DUI defense.

A lawyer first tries to understand the nature of the event when building a Birmingham second offense DUI charge. When someone has a second offense charge, the attorney tells the defendant that if the case proceeds to a jury trial, the jury does not know the trial is for a second offense. The jury focuses on that one instance to determine whether somebody was drunk driving.

The law says that someone’s prior convictions should not be used to convict them on the present charge. The lawyer tries to keep that information away from the jury and in the majority of cases, that information is excluded.

The defendant’s lawyer gets the police reports, 911 calls, videos of the incident, videos of the arrest and being taken back to the station to be booked, and information about the testing and testing logs. The lawyer reviews all of the materials and information because if there is a problem, it could lead a different result than someone ending up with a conviction on their record.

The lawyer wants to understand the events surrounding the charge to make sure the courts know that much of the evidence the state gathered and put forward is based on speculation and hypothesis and was never proven.

The first standard in a drunk driving case is the legal standard. The lawyer looks for anything that justifies or permits the police officer to perform the various tests and the justifications for those tests. The lawyer questions the justification for any arrest and further testing to make sure that the legal standard was met. If the legal standard is not met, the police officer did something illegal. The lawyer can point that out to have the case dismissed.

The National Traffic Highway Safety Administration (NTHSA) offers training in the investigation of drunk driving and a standardized procedure for the police officers who are trained in police academies across the nation. As things go on in the field, the standards change from what the officers are originally taught and how they are trained. It is important that the defense lawyer understands the current trends in training when building a Birmingham second offense DUI defense.

The NHTSA training is based on studies that are open to interpretation and sometimes police officers do not follow the training they were given. The police officer may not give the proper instruction on a sobriety test which leads to failure because the person was not properly instructed on how to do the test. The lawyer wants to make sure that the officer followed their standards did not try to make the test more difficult. Some tests an officer uses are not actually part of the NHTSA training. When a person is charged with a DUI, their lawyer can bring into question the validity of the tests and how they were administered.

The other standard is common sense. Sometimes a police officer claims something happened that goes against the great weight of common sense. The defense lawyer carefully examines every bit of information related to the case. They can provide the defendant with the necessary information so the accused offender can make the appropriate decisions related to a possible trial or plea to avoid harsher penalties.

When someone has a pattern of conduct, the lawyer investigates even more thoroughly to ensure that the behavior does not happen again. The prosecutors, judges, and police officers might begin to think that there is an alcohol problem so the defense lawyer helps the accused find a professional who can make the determination as to whether the person is an alcoholic.

When a defense lawyer has a client with a first, second, or higher offense, they obtain the services of trained professionals to determine whether the client has a problem. If that turns out to be the case, the defense lawyer can get them help. It is most helpful to a person’s case to identify early that they need help. The court will order the defendant to not do drugs and to test to ensure that they are not doing drugs or alcohol. If they cannot maintain sobriety, it makes the case much harder and the penalties at the end are harsher.

With a second offense DUI, the lawyer is especially diligent when reviewing the evidence because the penalties are much more severe. They want to make sure that the client understands that they may have to go to trial and is well prepared to do so. When building a Birmingham second offense DUI defense, it is vital you contact an accomplished attorney who could provide the needed help to your case.