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Everyday I see individuals who are charged with a DUI in Pennsylvania walk into court and  simply plead guilty. Most of the time I know nothing about their case or what their attorney has done or hasn’t done. People need to understand that just because you are arrested for a DUI that doesn’t automatically mean that your are guilty of the crime.  There are many defenses and ways to challenge a DUI in Pennsylvania and I want to take some time and go through some of them.ILLEGAL STOP

The most common way to challenge a DUI is to argue that the actual stop of the motor vehicle was illegal in some way.  Many times it is argued that the police did not have “probable cause” to stop the vehicle.  There are many ways to prove that there was something wrong with the stop or that the officer did not have reasonable suspicion to act accordingly.  One such way which is to see if the officer had a dash cam video and if they did request it immediately. If for instance the officer claims that a motorist  was pulled over because they were “weaving all over the road”, a video may be able to disprove this and have stop thrown out.

FIELD SOBRIETY TESTS

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Matthew Scott Diehl appealed from his 9 1/2 to 19 years’ sentence after a jury convicted him of various DUI-related charges, including homicide by vehicle while DUI and third-degree murder. Diehl contended the trial court erred when it allowed the state to introduce evidence of his 2005 DUI conviction and alcohol awareness classes as evidence of malice in support of the third-degree murder charge. The appeals court disagreed.

In the early morning hours of April 27, 2013, Fire Chief Rodney Miller of the Loganville Fire Department – the victim – was closing lanes of I-83 to allow for an emergency helicopter landing. To divert traffic, Chief Miller parked his truck diagonally across both lanes. The truck was equipped with oscillating emergency lights.

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As we move into the month of May and the days begin to get longer, more and more people will begin to enjoy the weather outside and spend much more time on the road. Law Enforcement agencies all over Pennsylvania will also begin to set up sobriety checkpoints to do what they can take intoxicated drivers off the road. For those that don’t know, a DUI checkpoint or roadblock is a specifically designated location on a roadway where police are looking for potential impaired drivers.

If you or someone you know is arrested for a DUI as part of a checkpoint it is important to contact an attorney as soon as possible. This is because there are procedures that must be followed with these checkpoints and if they are not that can have a impact on your case.  Many times I have a client come into my office for an initial consultation and they automatically assume they are guilty because they were caught in a checkpoint. A qualified,experienced, aggressive DUI attorney will look into this checkpoint to make sure that all procedures were followed.  Even if they were followed, that doesn’t mean that a person is automatically guilty of a DUI.  There are many ways to defend and attack a DUI which we will get into on other posts.

One of the most important procedures that must be followed is that police or law enforcement agency must make public the location of where the checkpoint will be set up. Unfortunately most people don’t go onto google prior to driving to see where these checkpoints will be. By the time that a person realizes there is a checkpoint ahead it is usually too late.  Some of the other requirements an experienced DUI attorney should look for whenever they have a client who has been arrested as a result of a DUI  checkpoint:

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Pennsylvania is now one of twenty four (24) states to legalize medical marijuana.  Just yesterday Governor Tom Wolf signed this bill into law.  The bill goes into detail on just how patients can take the marijuana if prescribed by a doctor.  Specifically an individual can take the marijuana in a pill, oil or liquid form.  This is important because many people I have talked to thought that when this bill passed they would be able to just smoke marijuana or even grow their own plants and this is just not the case.

The specific legislation that was passed outline seventeen (17) qualified diagnosed conditions that an individual must exhibit in order to be prescribed marijuana. The medical conditions covered include:

  • Cancer
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The Pennsylvania Superior Court recently reversed a lower court order granting defendant James Finley early parole.

In the early morning of August 2013, Sergeant Timothy Clark responded to a report of a person unconscious inside a gray vehicle in a McDonald’s parking lot. Arriving at the scene, the sergeant noticed an empty bottle of Smirnoff Ice on the floor of the suspect’s car. Clark knocked on the driver’s window and awoke the driver. The driver opened the window. He had glassy, bloodshot eyes, but he denied consuming alcohol. Rather than get out of the car, he closed the window and revved the engine. Sergeant Clark grabbed the door handle, but the driver began to flee. Another officer responded as back-up and pursued the fleeing vehicle.

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One of the most common questions I receive from potential clients is “what will happen to me for my first DUI”. While that is certainly a very fair question, the answer will be different for everyone depending on thefacts and circumstances of each individual case.Pennsylvania is one of the states that has mandatory minimum sentences even for first time offenders. Depending on an individual’s blood alcohol level and/or if there are any drugs in the system will be very important factors to look at.

Blood Alcohol Level <.10%

An individual with a blood alcohol level below a .10% is not looking at any jail time or any license suspension. They are however looking a mandatory 6months probation as well as a $300 fine.

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The Superior Court of Pennsylvania recently reversed the lower court’s dismissal of charges against a defendant charged with a DUI on an allegedly private roadway.

In August 2014, Alison Lees was charged with DUI, reckless driving, and careless driving after driving intoxicated from her parking spot and onto a grassy area. The trial court held a pretrial hearing in July 2015. What follows is a description of the evidence presented.

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The York County organization Center for Traffic Safety recently determined that the cost of the average DUI arrest totals a whopping $10,000. The organization cited this figure while admonishing St. Patrick’s Day celebrants not to drive inebriated, as well as to put drivers on notice of the existence of numerous DUI checkpoints and roaming DUI patrols.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), from 2010 to 2014 nearly two out ofthree traffic fatalities between between midnight and 6am on St. Patrick’s Day occurred in drunk driving crashes. During these same years, the rate of drunk driving arrests on St. Patrick’s Day was 7% higher than the national drunk driving rate. During this period on St. Patrick’s Day, over half of men aged 21-34 who died from injuries associated with car crashes were killed in drunk driving incidents.

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The Pennsylvania Superior Court recently upheld appellant Renaire Lewis’s conviction for DUI despite his argument that the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

In the early morning of July 2014, Lower Pottsgrove Police Sgt. Greenwood was investigating a vehicle (“Vehicle 1”) stopped on Buchert Road, which was blocking the lane. During his investigation, Sgt. Greenwood heard a second vehicle (“Vehicle 2”) driven by Lewis accelerating toward him. Sgt. Greenwood attempted to alert Lewis of the danger by waving his flashlight, but appellant continued to drive toward the obstruction. Lewis then slammed his brakes, causing his tires to screech. As Lewis decelerated, he swerved into the eastbound lane of Buchert Road to avoid colliding with Sgt. Greenwood or Vehicle 1.

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Like many people in Pennsylvania, you find your self in a situation you never thought to be in.  You have just been arrested for a DUI.  You think to yourself “how could this happen to me” or “how will this affect my family”.  It is important to understand what your rights are when you are arrested and what your options are moving forward. The first thing that you need to understand is the criminal process in Pennsylvania, specifically when it comes to DUI.

After a person is arrested for a DUI, the first significant step after that is the preliminary hearing.  At the preliminary hearing the Commonwealth must show that there is enough evidence to hold this case over to the Court of Common Pleas.  Usually in a DUI case the blood or breath report is typically enough to achieve this goal since the standard at this level is VERY low. Many times rather then have a hearing an attorney may advise their client to just waive the charges to the next level.  One reason this may be is because in order to be admitted into Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition https://www.pennsylvaniaduilawyers.com/a-r-d-accelerated-rehabilitative-disposition.html or “ARD” some counties require a person to waive their preliminary hearing. If an individual is NOT eligible for ARD  having a hearing so the affiant or police officer takes the witness stand and testifies to what ALLEGEDLY happened is a very good idea. After a hearing it is then up to a District Judge to make a determination as to whether there is enough evidence to hold the charges over to the next level.

The next phase after the preliminary hearing the case moves up to the Court of Common Pleas in each individual county.  For instance in Montgomery County that would be Norristown, in Delaware County it would be in Media, Chester County would be in West Chester, and Bucks County would be in Doylestown. If a person has applied for ARD and eventually accepted, an ARD hearing will be scheduled in which both client and attorney will have to appear in order to be admitted into the program.   If on the other hand a person is not going into ARD their case will be assigned an Assistant District Attorney as well as an assigned Judge.  At this point an individual arrested for DUI is entitled to ask for all the discovery or evidence that the Commonwealth has.  This is done through an attorney filing a request for discovery with the district attorney’s office.  Discovery can include reports, videos, physical evidence or really just about anything the Commonwealth has in their possession that they intend to use to prosecute at the time of trial.  A qualified DUI attorney will then file any appropriate motions to make sure their client is getting the absolute best result.  One of the most common motions to file is a Motion to Suppress if  for instance the police stopped a vehicle illegally.

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