You Tried To Sleep It Off In Your Car; Now You're Being Charged With A DUI
Few college students go through their 2-4 years of time without experiencing a little bit of alcohol ingestion. Unfortunately, a large number of these students get arrested for DUIs while trying to drive home. If you've been out drinking, you might try to do the right thing by sleeping it off in your car, only to find yourself in handcuffs for a DUI offense.
Getting charged with and convicted with one of these crimes can be devastating to your future career. However, if you are approached by an officer after a big college party and you're sleeping in your car, you might be able to get away with no offense. That's because many states don't make it illegal to sleep in your car, due to the large number of homeless people who must sleep in their vehicles. If the officer approached you and immediately arrested you for a DUI, without any just cause, they are breaking the law.
That said, a police officer may assume that you, a college student, were definitely drunk or behaved in a drunken way. For example, they may have given you a sobriety test which you didn't pass. That might seem unfair to you. After all, getting woken up by an officer while sleeping in your car is likely going to make you too nervous to pass parts of the test.
If you are arrested for sleeping behind the wheel of a vehicle after drinking, there are a few defenses you can take. One of the best is to argue that you weren't actually intoxicated when the police found you. A blood alcohol level test is critical in this situation because it can gauge whether or not you were drunk or not. Make sure that you demand one to be taken before you are arrested.
If you are brought in without any proof that you were intoxicated, your case may be thrown out of court. This fact is particularly true if you can argue that the officer had a bias against you as a college student and arrested you for no reason. However, if they did take a blood alcohol level test and it was below the legal level for a DUI, there is a good chance that you can also defend yourself in this kind of trial.
As a result, it is critical to talk to a DUI defense attorney as soon as possible and learn more about your rights. While there's no guarantee that they can overturn your conviction, they can give you the best chances or at least bring it down to a lesser charge. Reach out to a DUI accident lawyer for more information.