Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The Pre-Trial Process For Illinois DUI

In case that the law enforcement officer will have reasons to believe that you were driving under the influence of alcohol, he will pull you over and will administer special field sobriety tests. In addition, in order to determine with better precision if you are drunk, the law enforcement officer will probably administer the breathalyzer test, which is delivering more accurate results. In case the police officer is going to decide that you need to be placed under arrest, he or she will be required to immediately notify you of your driver’s license suspension within 30 days after the arrest. In addition, the officer will need to file the official copy of the notice of suspension of the driver’s license along with the driver’s license itself to the DMV.

With that done, the law enforcement officer is going to take you to the police station or even to a hospital in order to administer a BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) blood test. If in case of the breathalyzer test, the results are instant, when it comes to the blood tests – results are a lot more accurate, but may take up to several days. In most cases, the suspect will be held in the facility if the test results will arrive within several hours. However, once the DUI tests are administered (or once the suspect refuses to submit him or herself to the tests), the suspect will be booked and released.

After you are going to be arrested and before you are going to be released, you will get the official date for the arraignment, which is basically the pre-trial hearing. During this arraignment, the judge is going to explain what you were charged with and what kind of rights you currently have. These include the right of legal counsel of course. Furthermore, during the arraignment, the two parties (both the prosecution and the defense) will be able to exchange all the evidence they have. Such an exchange is without a doubt mutually beneficial and allows building a stronger case. Furthermore, during that very hearing, if the defendant does not have the money to hire a lawyer, the court will ask him or her to fill out all the paperwork indicating the financial situation and, if the judge will deem it appropriate, the defendant will be granted a public defender.

Finally, in case that you do not want your driver’s license to be revoked, it is very important, crucial even, to make sure that you are going to initiate an administrative DMV hearing within 10 days after the arrest took place. That way you are going to fight against this decision. The DMV has nothing to do with the criminal hearing, but they do have one thing in common. In both cases, you will need to have a qualified as well as genuinely experienced legal representative by your side in order to make the most from it.

Find more information about DUI process here: www.chicagoduilawyernow.com

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

DUI Vehicular Manslaughter Charges and Possible Consequences

Roads and highways of the nation are pretty much filled with all sorts of vehicles these days. Their number is constantly growing, so it is only natural that more and more people are injured or even killed in all sorts of car accidents every single year. In some cases, there is no one to blame for the accident – it was just a tragic misfortune that was caused by uncontrollable factors, such as weather conditions. Nevertheless, all too often there is a party that is responsible for producing the collision to being with. This happened due to human negligence or even because of the fact that people were operating their vehicles under the influence of alcohol. Indeed, the official statistical data clearly demonstrates that more and more people choose to get behind the wheel after drinking alcohol. No doubt, in case a person was killed by another individual, who, let us say, was Driving Under the Influence of alcohol, there can be no excuse for the loss of human life at all. Nevertheless, in most of the cases, people sincerely repent of committing such a crime and we all make errors, even if some of those errors are hurting the people around us.

With that said, at times, alcohol is not the matter – people are simply under too much stress as well as tension to notice what is going around them and they are driving in a genuinely frantic manner. They are neglecting the flashing red lights, speeding, changing the lanes improperly. Furthermore, do not forget that a lot of people are suffering from different medical conditions, so accidents are triggered due to those medical issues. Of course, it is a very important factor that will need to be taken into consideration by the court. Hence, people are interested in learning just what kind of penalties result from vehicular manslaughter. Well, this very much depends on the state’s laws and legislation. However, when it comes to cases of vehicular manslaughter that were caused by driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the court will prove to be quite intolerant indeed. This very much may imply that the defendant will be convicted and will have to spend up to 15 years in prison, which is a pretty harsh sentence on its own.

Regardless of the circumstances of the vehicular manslaughter case, it is rather difficult to come up with a solid defense strategy. Hence, the very first thing that you will need to do would be hiring a qualified as well as genuinely experienced attorney who specialize in Chicago DUI criminal defense. Only a skillful criminal attorney will have the knowledge and, more importantly, the experience to help you. Good lawyers will be able to gather more evidence that would point out that numerous factors caused the accident and not only your negligence alone. After all, it is very easy to judge others if you do not know the circumstances of the crime and how it all went in truth.

The Chicago DUI Experts