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Should I Answer The Police Officer’s Questions At A DUI Stop?

All you have to answer at a DUI stop is your name, your date of birth, and your social security number. Beyond that, the best thing you can do is say that you want to talk to your lawyer. That is the invocation of your federal constitutional rights. Florida courts have held that your right to invoke constitutional rights is not admissible in a trial, so that officer could not testify against you in court. NEVER talk to the police, beyond giving your identity. If you don't talk, you can't be misquoted. 

Here is a fuller explanation of why you should NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE. 

Why Was I Asked To Perform Multiple Breath Tests?

Breathalyzer machines have a margin of error and the phenomena that they are measuring varies from breath to breath. In Florida, it is required that there be two samples taken within fifteen minutes of each other and that they result within .02 with each other. You cannot have a valid breath test without two samples. 

Why Was A Blood Test Not Offered To Me In My DUI Case?

On occasion, a blood test will be offered, if someone volunteers to take a blood test. Under Florida law, the only time the police can request a blood test is after an accident where someone is subjected to a serious bodily injury or if there is an accident where you are at a hospital seeking treatment, and the police arrive at the hospital to find that it is impossible to transport you to wherever the nearest breath test machine is.

Why Did They Say I Refused The Blood test When I Actually Did End Up Taking It?

Sometimes, the police think that you didn't blow hard enough or you didn't give a large enough sample. In Florida, the Intoxilyzer 8000 requires 1.1 liters of air to get a valid sample. If you give a 1.0 liter of air, it does not register and will be called a refusal. They do this at their own risk because if the police step in too soon and call it a refusal, sometimes the courts will overrule them by saying that it was not a refusal. 

If The Officer Was Outside His Jurisdiction During My DUI Arrest, Does That Invalidate My Arrest?

I have had number of cases where an officer started following someone while they were in their own jurisdiction and kept following him out of it. A lot of times, officers live outside of the jurisdiction where they work, so they are driving their patrol car home and they follow someone and see them touching the white line. They may decide to make a citizen's arrest but there are lot of requirements for a citizen's arrest, which are different from what the requirements are when an officer makes an arrest. 

This issue is complicated by the fact that some jurisdictions have what they call mutual assistance compacts, which allows officers from one jurisdiction to enforce traffic laws in another jurisdiction. It's very complicated and you'd need to be a lawyer to be able to parse out whether, in a given case, out of his jurisdiction, an officer had the authority to make a traffic stop. 

For more information on DUI Charges While Not Driving A Car, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (941) 219-5553 today.

Why We're Different

Board Certification as a DUI Specialist by the National College for DUI Defense. Formal NHTSA Certification as an Instructor of the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests given by police in DUI cases. Formal training as a NHTSA Drug Recognition Evaluator. ("Drug Evaluation & Classification") Formal training to operate the Intoxilyzer 8000, Florida's official breath test instrument. Extensive experience in teaching other attorneys how to handle DUI cases. Hundreds of jury trials both as defense lawyer and as prosecutor.

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