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If Arrested For DUI, Do This Now!
- Take the case seriously.
Many people mistakenly believe that a DUI is not a serious
crime. In fact, more people go to jail for DUI than
for any other crime. You can lose your driver's license
from 120 days to 5 years! Your costs for community
service, probation, alcohol programs, reeducation
programs, driving schools, interlock devices and other
court ordered punishment can reach the thousands of
dollars! Insurance will either be canceled or the
premium will be astronomical. A DUI conviction can
affect you for the rest of your life!
- Hire a DUI attorney. DUI
laws are complex. Until the mid 1990's most any general
practice lawyer could handle a DUI. Now, DUI's involve
complex issues of chemistry, forensic science, constitutional
law, and administrative law. Dui laws change on a
weekly basis. Only an experienced DUI attorney
can adequately handle a DUI these days.
- Don't delay! You may have
to request a hearing from the Department of Public
Safety within 10 business days of your arrest.
If you don't you could lose your license automatically,
without being found guilty!
- Don't rely on advice of friends!
Unless they are specialists in DUI defense, they cannot
be informed about DUI law. Unless they practice in
front of the same prosecutors and judges on a daily
basis, there is no way they know how the case should
be handled. The "good ole days" of having a friendly
cop or judge dismiss your DUI are gone. Special interest
groups such as MADD place extreme pressure on judges
and prosecutors to aggressively prosecute DUI's.
- Don't base the hiring of an attorney
on money alone. The old adage, "you get what
you pay for" is true when it comes to DUI defense.
You need to hire a lawyer and pay a fee that will
allow him to aggressively investigate, then defend
you! Hiring a lawyer at the lowest fee may simply
result in paying a lawyer to stand there while you
enter a guilty plea. In the end, the lawyer moves
on to another plea, and you move on to jail!
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