DWI Cases: Q&A

A: You have to hope that the police officer doesn’t have any evidence other than your admission to the two beers. Once you admit to two beers, you’re going to be asked to step out of the car and take field sobriety tests, and as I indicated, chances are you will not pass the field sobriety tests according to the police officer, so you’ll be arrested and then you will have the choice as to whether to blow or not blow. If you’ve honestly had just two beers, you might want to take the chance of taking the breath test and possibly blowing a very low number. However, in terms of fighting the case, it will depend upon the results of field sobriety tests, the formal breath test and whether you can corroborate through other evidence that you only had two beers.

A: Very few people pass field sobriety tests, in part because the standards are so subjective and ambiguous that most stone sober people couldn’t pass them, if they were on the side of the road late at night with cars speeding by. I know of very few people who have passed those tests, although I wouldn’t be in contact with them, anyway, because if they passed, they wouldn’t be charged with DWI, so they wouldn’t seek me out. There are so many ways they are bad news; for one thing, most police officers are not well trained in giving them, but also, they’re not standardized, no matter what police claim. If they were so reliable and standardized, they should be recorded on video, and the judge and jury should be able to look at them and judge for themselves whether instructions were followed and whether a person actually failed. Unfortunately, police don’t do that, for a reason.

A: That is the age old question; in Westchester County in New York, where I practice, up until about a year ago, it was more advantageous to not blow if it was a first offense, because there was a better chance of getting the initial DWI charge, a misdemeanor, reduced to a traffic violation. Since then, however, the district’s attorney in Westchester and most of the contiguous and outlying counties have adopted different rules, which means you don’t get the benefit of not blowing; if you don’t blow, they are going to treat it as if you blew a very high number. In other words, regardless of whether you blow or not, the chances are slim that they’ll reduce the charge, which makes this a much more difficult question to answer. If you’re looking to get your charges reduced, it’s probably better to blow, because there’s a possibility you could blow a lower number than you thought, which could reduce the consequences through a reduced charge. However, if you’ve been drinking a lot, or you’re involved in an accident with serious personal injury, you will be in a position where you might want to contest the matter at trial, and it’s always better not to blow in that circumstance.

A: The main reason public defenders can’t spend a lot of time on your case is because their caseloads are too large. I don’t know that statistics are published anywhere but you can tell by the number of files that a public defender brings to court the type of pressure and time constraints they are under. They speak to a district attorney about as many as 10-15 cases at once, so yours is likely to be lost in the pile, which means it can’t possibly receive the individualized attention it deserves.

A: Defending yourself is a bad idea for many reasons, but mainly, it’s because the law is too complicated and if you’re not well versed in it, you won’t know what to do. That means it becomes a hassle for the judge, who will have to constantly correct the way you’re proceeding, to ensure that you get a fair defense. Again, it’s the age of specialty and criminal charges; DWI charges in particular are so complicated now, you couldn’t possibly defend yourself. It’s the same reason that you don’t provide yourself with your own medical care.

A: You won’t know the answer to that until the end of the case, when you see the result and decide whether you’re satisfied, but you can get a feel for an attorney’s skill level when he appears with you in court. You should also be able to tell if he or she seems to know what they’re doing, if the people at the courthouse know him, if he’s comfortable in a courtroom setting and if he presents himself well while he’s representing you.

A: Whether it is worth it to hire an attorney to represent you for a DWI will depend largely on your financial situation. Not every attorney is worth it; some charge much too much, in my estimation. However, for what is, in my opinion, a reasonable amount of money, you can get very good value and receive very good service in return. It’s not worth it to risk your life and your future by not hiring a lawyer or relying on the court to provide you with a lawyer that is not your personal choice. If you hire a lawyer who is a DWI specialist, you will have a much greater chance of seeing a favorable outcome that doesn’t ruin either your life or your future. Hiring a DWI specialist is much like hiring a specialist to perform surgery on you; because they have handled so many cases before, they know the process, they know the judges and they know the prosecutors in the District Attorney’s office, which means they will be more likely to get you the best possible outcome for your case.