DUI Lawyers - On The Front Line In The Justice System

DUI lawyers are viewed by many as bottom feeders of the justice system. Nothing could be less true. While the murder cases, usually the ones involving celebrities, generally attract the lion's share of the media attention, the everyday struggles for the average person's constitutional rights is amplified in DUI cases. Drunk driving cases are arguably the most relevant forum in setting the tone for our justice system.

Allow me to back this bold legal theory by some observations.

DUI cases serve as a training ground for young prosecutors. I would venture a guess that at least half of the prosecutors, past and present, had their first jury trial experience in a misdemeanor drunk driving case. Since DUI is a crime that does not require a guilty conscious or intent (mens rea in legal speak), conviction is a more simple feat given the right evidence than a crime of passion. Since most states have per se DUI laws, which provide that if a person is above a certain measurable alcohol concentration (typically a .08 percent), the law presumes them guilty, it is easy to believe, as a prosecutor, that every single person charged with DWI is, in fact, guilty. There is a danger that this mind set developed in DUI cases can carry over into the prosecution of other types of cases. This potential is amplified in busy prosecutors' offices where a threshold number of DUI jury trials earns the attorney a promotion to more serious felonies. While most prosecutors are intelligent and thoughtful lawyers, DUI cases are very different factually and legally than other types of crimes..

Despite the differences, DUI cases involve the same constitutional protections as other serious criminal cases. At least they are supposed to. The problem for the more serious cases is that legal precedent can be set in DUI cases which abridges a defendant's rights in a murder case. When prosecutors defend police conduct that arguably violates important rights such as the right to counsel or the right to have exculpatory evidence preserved, and justify their positions based on the fact that it is a DUI case, there is a very real danger that, if a judge agrees, the case can create bad law for other non-DUI cases.

Nobody seems to care if DUI penalties accelerate rapidly, or get blown out of proportion to other crimes. In Arizona, for example, DUI penalties recently jumped so that a person with a first offense conviction might find himself in jail for a minimum of 45 days. In contrast, some sex offenders do less time behind bars.. The science of DUI in the form of things such as field sobriety tests, and breath tests, lacks precision, yet prosecutors argue that although flawed, it is good enough. The National District Attorneys Association has several DUI references that discuss the prosecution of DUI cases

Impaired driving offenses cut across all class, race, gender and socioeconomic lines. Victims of impaired drivers and groups such as MADD argue an emotionally compelling case against any law that lets an accused drunk driver go free, even if that law would protect an innocent person accused of another type of life-altering crime. Their position is understandable. The problem is real. Drunk drivers are a danger. Nobody disputes that. But these cases are like many small streams that cause the erosion of our constitutional rights. We must pay attention to these streams before it is too late to reverse the process.

So it is the DUI defense lawyers, on the front lines in court cases that nobody watches or cares about, that don't make it onto CNN (except when certain starlets who shall remain unnamed here) get busted, who must fight to make sure it does not become easier to convict an innocent person. Not just a person innocent of DUI, but a person innocent of something that involves years or life in prison, or the death penalty. It is the DUI attorneys who must stand up because if they don't, then our justice system is in jeopardy.