You or a loved one may have gotten the shock of your lives when you were pulled over and charged with drunk driving. Intoxicated driving is something that the criminal justice system has been cracking down on in the last decade or so. Officers are trained to be on the lookout for drunk drivers, and penalties for drunk driving could be harsher than they have been in the past.
Being charged with drunk driving is a serious allegation. It is a criminal charge and the accused has the right to build a criminal defense against the charge. One defensive strategy that the accused could employ is claiming that the officer engaged in an improper stop when they pulled over the accused. This means they didn’t have probable cause to stop the driver.
The accused may also use an affirmative defense to DUI, which could include that the accused was driving out of necessity. Getting behind the wheel was necessary as the greater evil they wished to avoid was more serious than the potential to avoid a DUI. If a field sobriety test was used by an officer, the test has to be administered properly. If the test was incorrectly administered, this failure could be used as a defense.
There are other criminal defenses one could consider when accused of DUI. It really depends on the circumstances surrounding the incident that will help point to the best defense in your criminal case. Beyond rebutting the charges, the accused may decide that a plea deal is in their best interest.
