Orangeburg DUI: How Can a DUI Defense Attorney Help?

A DUI offense is a very serious charge to have on your file in Orangeburg. The punishment can vary depending on the number of times you have been caught “driving under the influence” of alcohol or drugs.

The first thing the authorities do when you are charged with a DUI is to suspend your driver’s license even before your case goes to court. However, there are circumstances when you can be granted temporary access to your license if you state some valid reasons. As an average citizen, you are not expected to know all the workarounds and ways to lower your sentence as much as possible.

A DUI defense attorney in Orangeburg can be helpful in ways you can’t think of. An experienced DUI defense attorney in Orangeburg can help you with the following issues and more.

When a Police Officer Stops Your Vehicle on Any Kind of Suspicion

A traffic officer in Orangeburg, South Carolina, can follow your vehicle and ask that you stop by the road at a safe location and ask to verify all your credentials on any suspicious way of driving. If the officer suspects you may be intoxicated, you will be asked to perform a series of sobriety tests to prove your sobriety. Failing these tests will result in you immediately being arrested under DUI charges. Refusing to take these tests would also likely get you arrested if the officer has enough reason to do so.

However, in some cases, you could argue in court that that officer had no reason to stop your vehicle. In such cases, your DUI attorney could also ask that all charges be dropped. However, a DUI defense attorney will help you understand whether you can pursue this in court. An officer has to follow several protocols before they even stop your vehicle. So talking to a defense attorney will help you see if all of those protocols were followed or not

Field Sobriety Tests

Field sobriety tests are a type of road test used to prove whether or not you are intoxicated. An officer in Orangeburg, SC, that has stopped your vehicle upon suspicion that something may be wrong with you has the right to ask you to perform any of the standard field sobriety tests. They can also ask that you take a breath analysis test, a blood test, or even a urine test if they find it necessary.

While you have the right to reject these requests, it will not stop the officer from arresting you if they believe you are intoxicated. It won’t stop the authorities from suspending your license either. A good DUI lawyer would give you a piece of much better advice on whether or not you should accept the tests. Once filed, your lawyer can always fight over the validity of the tests in court and help you in any way possible to overturn the test results.

A DUI Attorney Can Help You Get Bail

Once the field sobriety tests are done with, unless you can prove your innocence immediately, it is likely that you will be arrested and incarcerated for the time being. Once that happens, you will need help getting bail as well. A good DUI attorney can take care of all procedures related to securing your bail and have you out of that place as soon as possible.

They would then sit with you and discuss your options for proceeding further. Although it is rarely the case, if you believe you were not intoxicated and are falsely charged, your DUI attorney will fight tooth and nail on your behalf to have the authorities drop all charges against you regarding the DUI. At the very least, they can have the charges reduced as much as possible in your favor.

How a Lawyer Can Help Reduce the Penalties of DUI Charges

Whether it is your first DUI offense or a subsequent one, the penalties are stricter as the number of offenses increases. But, you can always request some leeway so that you are not penalized in the strictest sense possible under the law. If you did not damage or cause disturbance to public property or individuals, a good DUI attorney would know how to talk to the authorities and minimize the charges levied on you.

For example, the penalty for a first offense in a DUI case is a jail term for up to 30 days and/ or a fine of up to $400 plus court costs. A DUI attorney can help mitigate these penalties and help negotiate a deal acceptable to all parties.

You need to enroll with ADSAP within 30 days of being convicted and have your insurance company file a form called SR – 22 for the next 36 months. If you end up in jail, having a lawyer to do all this work and more would be a life saver. An attorney would ensure that there are no mistakes or hiccups

Privacy in Handling Court Cases

A person convicted of a DUI will lose a lot of job prospects and is likely to suffer financially as well. To avoid this, your DUI attorney can negotiate on your behalf to seal your court documents so that your privacy is kept intact and your life does not suffer more than the penalties associated with this. A DUI cannot be expunged from your record, but there are ways a good lawyer knows how to keep it private.

When the Police Make Mistakes

As a private citizen, you making a mistake is different from the police making mistakes. Nobody’s perfect, and mistakes are bound to happen. In such cases, and when you haven’t done any damage to public or private properties or individuals, your DUI attorney will be able to have all charges dropped against you, citing mistakes of the police. The test results won’t matter if the test itself was faulty. As such, talking to a DUI attorney would allow you to see every option available to you and give you proper guidance.

Contact a DUI Defense Attorney in Orangeburg

An Orangeburg, SC, criminal defense lawyer can help you in ways you would not think of. While being charged with a DUI is a rare occasion that one wishes never happens to them, an attorney would be dealing with such cases daily, and hence, they would be a lot more experienced than you to negotiate on your behalf for a fair deal.