DMV Hearing: What You need To Do within 10 Days Of A DUI Arrest

If you have
been arrested for a DUI in Orange County, or anywhere else in California for
that matter, then the officer who made the DUI arrest most likely took your
California driver’s license from you and gave you a pink piece of paper as a
temporary license. This paper is thick with small print legal terms that even
an Orange County DUI defense lawyer would have trouble understanding. A
quick review of the temporary license will leave most readers with the
understanding that there is a ten day window for something or another. In fact,
many people who have been arrested for DUI call our office asking what exactly
they must do within this ten day period. So here’s the answer.

The ten day
window gives the driver who was arrested for DUI the opportunity to set a  DMV hearing (called an APS hearing) to determine whether there is
enough evidence to justify a suspension of the driver’s driving privileges. If
the DUI arrestee, or the arrestee’s Orange County DUI defense attorney, does NOT call the DMV Driver Safety
office (a different DMV office than the one you normally go to) and request
this hearing, then the DMV will automatically suspend the driver’s license.
This automatic suspension, however, does not begin ten days after the DUI
arrest. Rather, the automatic driver’s license suspension begins 30 days after
the DUI arrest.

If the DUI
arrestee or their DUI lawyer does call the DMV and request the APS
hearing, then the DMV will mail a new paper temporary driver’s license to the
driver and will schedule the DMV hearing. The hearing is typically scheduled
for a time about 45 days down the road from when the driver or their DUI LAWYER
made the request for the DMV hearing. Thus, even if you believe that a
suspension is inevitable, as most people who have been arrested do, simply
scheduling a hearing will buy you more time before the suspension begins.
Moreover, your DUI defense Attorney will be able to “continue” or
postpone the hearing for another month or two if you need more time.

But apart
from pushing what seems like an inevitable suspension down the road, scheduling
a DMV hearing can   be very important for
another reason: your DUI Attorney may win the hearing. If your DUI
lawyer does win the hearing, you MAY be able to avoid a suspension altogether
if your DUI defense lawyer also gets the charges dropped in court or reduced to
a wet reckless. Sometimes, what seems like an
airtight case against you is much weaker than you thought. Perhaps the
breath-testing machine wasn’t properly calibrated. Or perhaps the officer who
administered the breath test did it improperly. There are specific steps that
the officer must take to make sure the breath test is reliable such as ask the
person arrested for DUI if they burped or belched within the 15 minutes prior
to the breath test. Or perhaps the officer didn’t conduct a 15-minute
observation of a driver BEFORE they took the breath test.

If you have
been arrested for a DUI it is important that you consult with an experienced
DUI attorney about your rights and options. Call The Law Offices of EJ Stopyro at (949) 559-5500 today for a free and confidential consultation about
your case. You can also visit us online at www.ejesquire.com.
We have offices at 32072 Camino Capistrano, 2^nd floor, San Juan
Capistrano, CA 92675 and 1901 Newport Blvd., Suite 350, Costa Mesa, CA 92627.