DWI Defense Strategies in New Jersey

Parsippany DUI Lawyer

Many people who are arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs forget the fact that they are legally presumed innocent until proven guilty. Unless the prosecutor assigned to your case can demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that you are guilty of the crime of drinking and driving or drugged driving, you cannot legally be convicted on charges of DWI.

Forgetting this fact, a large percentage of those who are charged with DWI give up any hope of fighting the case and they end up pleading guilty to the charges. In a large percentage of cases, this is an enormous mistake, for the simple fact that it is nearly always possible to effectively fight drunk driving charges.

Field Sobriety Tests Are Not Foolproof

The evidence which a police officer uses to make an arrest for DWI is very often entirely unreliable and should not be used in court to support a conviction. For example, the standardized roadside field sobriety tests – including the One-Leg Stand, the Walk-and-Turn and the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus – are notoriously subjective and have even been described as being "designed to fail." Simply put, success in the field sobriety test depends in large measure on whether or not the law enforcement officer wants you to pass or fail.

Even when the officer is entirely impartial and makes no mistakes in explaining or administering the tests, they are anything but scientifically accurate; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency responsible for developing the tests, admits that they have margins of error ranging from 12 to 92 percent. In other words, a DWI suspect could fail these tests while being entirely sober. By subpoenaing the recorded footage from the police car dashboard video camera, your Parsippany DWI attorney may be able to show the court that you were not intoxicated and that your ability to drive a vehicle was not impaired.

Challenging the Validity of Dwi Chemical Tests

While more scientific than the field sobriety tests, the breath and blood tests which are used to obtain evidence that a DWI suspect is intoxicated are still not entirely reliable. To begin with, the breathalyzer test does not directly measure the suspect's blood alcohol concentration (BAC). Instead, it determines how much alcohol is present in the breath, which may be a result of residual alcohol in the suspect's mouth.

The test can even trigger a false-positive when acid reflux, diabetes or other physiological conditions cause the breath to have a chemical composition which is similar to the breath of someone who has been drinking. Breath-test machines have also been demonstrated to be susceptible to radio frequency interference from sources such as scanners in the police statement. Your attorney may also be able to invalidate the test results by obtaining copies of the maintenance and calibration records for the machine, to demonstrate that it was not capable of delivering a reliable result.

Unlawful Traffic Stops in Dwi Investigations

Even if the police have a watertight case against you and there is no way of disputing the truth of the evidence, it may still be possible to have the charges dismissed by demonstrating that the evidence was obtained only by violating your constitutional rights. Under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, you are legally secure against unreasonable search and seizure. In plain terms, you cannot be searched or arrested unless a law enforcement officer has a warrant or probable cause to believe that you have committed – or are in the process of committing – a crime. Your attorney may be able to file a motion to suppress the evidence in the case after aggressively cross-examining the officer to reveal that he or she pulled you over without probable cause.