If you are pulled over by the CHP, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, or a local police agency in Orange County and the officer finds reason to believe that you have been drinking alcohol or taking drugs, whether prescribed or not, you will most likely become the subject of a DUI investigation. Unfortunately, you will not have your DUI Lawyer in Orange County by your side. If you fail the DUI investigation, then you will be arrested for DUI, DUI drugs, or DUI with injury depending on the circumstances.
The DUI investigation includes a series of questions, including queries about what you drank, when you drank, how much you drank, etc. Although you are NOT required to answer these questions, and usually you shouldn’t answer them without your Orange County DUI lawyer present, most people do answer them. The officer will then have you perform a series of field sobriety tests. These tests are also VOLUNTARY and you are under no legal obligation to perform the tests—although the officer will almost never tell you that. The final field sobriety test usually consists of a “voluntary” breath test.
The field
sobriety tests are designed to test your physical and mental abilities but most
importantly they are used as a way to gather evidence against you. In order to
convict you of violation Section 23152(a) [DUI] in court
proceedings, the prosecutor must prove that you were too impaired to drive
a vehicle safely. The field sobriety tests are often the most compelling
evidence that the DA can produce to show impairment.
DUI Lawyer in Orange County
know that most field sobriety tests are designed to test your “divided attention”.
This means that your attention during the test is divided between a physical
component and a mental component. For example, on the walk-and-turn test, the
subject must understand a complex set of instructions and execute these
instructions while at the same time exercising balance and physical
coordination. In fact, during the first part of this test, the officer will
have the subject stand heel to toe on a line WHILE the officer gives the
instructions. Thus, the subject literally must maintain their balance while
listening to and processing the instructions.
The idea is
that driving requires divided attention skills—a driver must use physical
coordination while executing turns and other driving maneuvers while at the
same time continuously processing data. Thus, poor performance on field
sobriety tests is arguably an indication that the driver’s divided attention
skills are too impaired to allow the driver to drive with the same care and
caution customary of a sober person. Of course, a skilled Orange County DUI Attorney can
usually cast doubt on the meaning of the “results” of these tests.
If you have
been arrested for drunk driving and would like to consult with an experienced DUI Attorney, call The Law
Offices of EJ Stopyro at (949) 559-5500 for a free and confidential telephonic
consultation.
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