There are very harsh consequences for refusing a secondary chemical test after being charged with a DUI offense, including a one-year license revocation, an adverse inference of intoxication during the criminal trial, and more difficulty defending the criminal charge. A DUI Refusal must be taken very seriously to avoid these serious penalties. Below are a few ways to beat a DUI Refusal.
- Act Very Quickly – To protect your right to challenge a DUI Refusal, you must act very quickly. There is a 30-day time period from the date of your arrest in which to request a DUI Refusal Hearing. If such a request is not made within that 30-day period, then the court will automatically make a finding that you refused and notify the DMV of your DUI Refusal. You will then be prohibited from challenging the finding. It is extremely important to act quickly. The best course of action is to contact an experienced DUI attorney for help.
- Show that No Reasonable Grounds to Believe a DUI Offense was Committed – For the court to make a DUI Refusal finding, the prosecution must show that there were reasonable grounds for an officer to believe that you committed a DUI offense. This involves looking at all the facts and circumstances surrounding the officer’s interaction with you, gathering of evidence, and arrest. There are numerous ways to challenge this element. An experienced criminal defense attorney will be able to find mistakes committed by the officer.
- Prove that the Officer Failed to Provide the Required Written and Verbal Warnings – This is the element that we used the most to prevail in a DUI Refusal hearing. State law requires that an officer verbally read a person arrested with DUI the Implied Consent Statement. State law also required that the officer physically hand the person a written copy of the Implied Consent Statement. Both the verbal warning and the written form must be provided. For example, we were successful in a case where the officer read the Implied Consent Statement but laid the physical copy of the Implied Consent Statement on a table, out of our client’s view.
- Demonstrate that You Did Not Refuse the Secondary Chemical Test – This is also a common way to challenge a DUI Refusal. A DUI Refusal is only valid if the officer gave you 15 minutes after the first refusal in which to change your mind. If the officer did not give you a chance to change your mind, or did not wait the required 15 minutes, then the DUI Refusal is not valid. We defeated a DUI Refusal finding in a case where the officer failed to afford our client 15 minutes to change his mind about the secondary chemical test, saving his license form being revoked for a year.
- Creative Motion Practice – Even in situations where the officer complied with all the statutory requirements for a DUI Refusal, we have still been able to avoid having the court make a DUI Refusal finding. This involves the filing of creative motions and persuasive negotiation strategies. Our experienced DUI team will look for any legal avenue to save your license in a DUI Refusal case.