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How can a criminal defense lawyer help me?
Having a criminal defense lawyer by your side during your drug crime proceedings is essential. However, for those who have never been through a criminal litigation process, they may not understand how much a lawyer can help. They might even make the mistake of trying to defend themselves pro se, i.e., navigate their legal proceedings without legal representation. When it comes to a drug-related trial, a pro se defendant might find him or herself unintentionally digging into a deeper and deeper hole.
If you're on the fence about hiring a lawyer in your case, you might want to consider some of the potential benefits of contacting a criminal defense attorney:
Reduction of criminal charges
The severity of your punishment depends on the severity of your criminal charges. For example, if you're convicted of speeding instead of drunk driving, your criminal consequences and potential punishments will be significantly less. Sometimes, a criminal attorney can succeed in getting his or her client's criminal charges reduced, which ultimately serves to make the punishments less in the event of a conviction.
How do attorneys deal with drug possession charges?
Drug possession charges are difficult to deal with and might lead to severe punishment if you are found guilty. It is important to have the right defense strategy to help you overcome the charges. Attorneys use different defense mechanisms when defending their clients against possession charges.
The basic strategy used by most attorneys is to put the onus on the prosecution to bring forward proof. The prosecution must establish beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant was in possession of an illegal substance. The defense may argue that the law enforcement agencies did not follow the due process of law. In case the search and seizure warrant was not carried out in a lawful manner, the defense might ask for the case to be dismissed. To recover drugs from concealed locations, law enforcement officers must ask for the owner's permission, or have a search warrant. Drugs placed in plain sight can be seized without permission of the owner. The defense may also argue that the defendant had no prior knowledge of the presence of the drugs that were discovered.
How do lawyers defend against drunk driving?
It might have happened while you were driving home from a party late at night. It might have happened while you were driving your children to school in the morning. In fact, a drunk driving arrest can happen at any time you're operating your vehicle. However, just because you get arrested and accused of this crime does not mean that a criminal court will find you guilty. Until the prosecution can prove you were drunk behind the wheel beyond a reasonable doubt, you will have every opportunity to defend yourself.
Although every drunk driving defense strategy will be different depending on the circumstances of how the arrest occurred, here are a two ways that DUI defendants might try to fight their charges:
Defenses related to police procedure: There are many things that can go wrong in the moments preceding a driver's arrest. Police have rules and procedures they need to follow, and failure to follow these rules could invalidate an arrest. Important questions to ask in this regard include: Did the police have a viable reason to pull over the driver? Did police administer the field sobriety or breathalyzer test in a lawful way? If the answer to these questions is "no," then it could reveal a strategy to defend against the charges.
How do police determine if a driver is drunk?
Police use a variety of methodologies to spot potentially drunk drivers. Learning what police look for might help you avoid an inappropriate DUI. In fact, many drivers in Wisconsin have been arrested and charged with DUI because they made some simple and relatively harmless mistake on the road. If you're sober, and you know what to avoid, it should be fairly easy to prevent making the following errors by mistake:
- Driving in an unpredictable and or erratic way: Drivers who are intoxicated tend to operate their vehicles erratically. They might cross the centerline suddenly without warning. They might speed up and slow down for no reason at all. They could be piloting their vehicles in other strange ways that call attention to the vehicle and driver. As long as you're driving close to the speed limit, and you're maintaining your speed and your lane in a steady way, you should be able to avoid the risk of getting falsely accused of a DUI.
- Being overly nervous during a field sobriety test: Stay calm and respectful during your field sobriety test, and remember to breathe. It's easy to get nervous when police are administering a field sobriety test. However, that nervousness -- if it's extreme enough -- could cause police to think you're intoxicated, so be sure to stay as calm as you can.
How do police officers determine drugged driving?
There are tests that police use in the field to determine if a driver is operating his or her vehicle while intoxicated by alcohol. The king of these tests is the Breathalyzer testm which provides a way to measure the amount of alcohol in a driver's blood. Police can also use gaze tests, smell your breath and have you perform other field sobriety tests to gauge how intoxicated you are.
When it comes to drugged driving, however, police don't have such a clear way to determine if you have drugs in your system. For example, marijuana can be found in your bloodstream and urine for as many as four or five weeks following the use of the drug, but police can't use such tests to determine if you're high on marijuana right now. As for cocaine, it will stay in your system for one or two days. Again, you might have evidence of these drugs in your system but not be intoxicated at all.
Sometimes, police can use "Drug Recognition Experts," also known as DREs, to evaluate what kind of drugs are impairing you. A DRE can look closely at your eye movements, your behavior and other indicators to determine if you're under the influence of drugs and what kind of drug could be influencing you. These specially trained experts might perform tests on you after police bring you back to the police station following an arrest.
How does a Breathalyzer test device work?
If you were arrested for drunk driving, at some point during your arrest process, police probably administered a Breathalyzer test. The results of this test may have even produced a key piece of evidence in your criminal defense lawsuit, and the prosecution may try to use this evidence against you to convict you of drunk driving. As such, you might want to understand a little more about how Breathalyzer tests work.
The Breathalyzer test machine comes in numerous forms and variety. "Breathalyzer" is a brand name, but other companies may offer breath testing devices as well. Generally, all of these devices work the same, and they are all subject to rending completely inaccurate test results. As such, even if your breath test showed you had a high blood alcohol content (BAC), it doesn't necessarily mean that you will ultimately be convicted.
Breathalyzers analyze the percentage concentration of alcohol in your blood by registering how much alcohol is dissolved into your breath. A scientific testing methodology known as infrared spectroscopic analysis is used to analyze your breath like this. The captured alcohol within your breath is detected because it absorbs light waves that belong to a specific frequency. The more of these lightwaves the are captured, the higher score of drunkenness the Breathalyzer will give you.
How to avoid getting arrested for drunk driving
The best way to handle a drunk driving charge in Wisconsin is to avoid getting arrested in the first place. Aside from becoming a teetotaler and refraining from drinking completely, there are a few precautions that every Wisconsin driver should make if he or she wants to prevent getting hit with this very serious criminal charge.
Here are a few tips from State Farm Insurance, which will prevent you from getting arrested and charged with a DUI:
- Select a designated driver for the night. This person will be your sober buddy who will make sure you get home safely without needing to drive drunk.
- Ask someone to give you a ride. If you're too drunk to drive, don't be shy to ask a sober friend to give you a lift. Most people will be happy to oblige.
- Take keys away from drunk people. If someone is intoxicated at a party, don't be shy to take the person's keys away from him or her. Even though the person might react negatively, think of it this way: You could be saving a friend's life.
How To Deal With A Drunk Driving Charge In Waukesha, Wisconsin
In Wisconsin's Waukesha County, a drunk driving charge is formally referred to as Operating While Intoxicated (OWI). There are various ways to be charged with an OWI offense, including driving with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08 percent or higher; driving under the influence of an illegal drug or other controlled substance; driving with a noticeable measure of restricted or controlled substance in the blood; or driving under the influence of any intoxicant such as alcohol, prescription or over the counter medication, or an illegal or controlled drug.
When pulled over by the police, most people's first inclination is to volunteer information. Although it is generally not wise to refuse to speak with an officer asking routine questions, it would be wise to avoid embellishing or providing extra information. This is because the probability of incriminating yourself or providing more facts that support your guilt increases the more you speak. Rather, you should be polite, calm, and cooperative with the police.
How to defend against a drug possession charge
Due to the differences between drugs and their potential punishments, defendants accused of drug possession will need to tailor their defense strategies to the unique facts and circumstances that apply to their cases. For example, if you've been accused of possessing a kilo of cocaine, your defense strategy will probably be very different from the strategy employed by someone accused of possessing half an ounce of marijuana.
That said, there are certain drug possession defense strategies that -- depending on the circumstances -- could apply to any kind of drug crime accusation.
Here are several common defenses against drug possession
What follows are some of the most common defense strategies employed by those accused of drug possession:
Unlawful search and seizure: The police cannot perform a search and seizure randomly on anyone. The need to have a reasonable cause of action to suspect that the person is in possession of a drug in order to perform a search. For example, maybe the police saw drugs in the backseat of the defendant's car. This would be sufficient reason for them to perform a search. If police perform a search and seizure operation without sufficient cause, then any resulting charges could be thrown out in court.
How to defend yourself against a theft charge
Not all theft accusations are appropriate. Sometimes, people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or it just appears as if they stole something when they really did not. Regardless of how your theft charges came about, one of the following four theft defense strategies might apply to your circumstances.
Claim that the property belonged to you
Imagine you and a friend have a disagreement about who owns a specific piece of property. You decide to take the property home with you even though there's a disagreement, and your friend calls the police. If you can offer evidence that the property was yours -- perhaps by showing a receipt of purchase -- you will have an excellent criminal defense.
Explain that you were drunk
Imagine you are at a bar and on your way out, you grab someone's cellphone and put it in your pocket because the cellphone looked just like yours. The next thing you know, the police are knocking on your door. If you can explain that you were so drunk that you grabbed the phone by mistake, you might be able to get your charges dropped.
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