Alpharetta DUI Lawyer

COMMITTED DEFENSE AGAINST DUI CHARGES

The Law Offices of Richard S. Lawson have worked for over 20 years to actively protect the rights of those accused of DUI offenses. Our firm focuses strictly on DUI defense and has resolved over 4900 DUI cases to date. As we have purposefully limited the concentration of our practice, we are able to undertake a wide variety of DUI matters from your Administrative License Suspension proceedings (ALS hearing) to violations of probation, marijuana cases, prior DUI convictions, DUI under 21, DUI accidents and serious injury and many more.

A DUI arrest and conviction can dramatically alter the course of your life for the worse. If you have been charged with a DUI offense, a committed Alpharetta DUI attorney from our firm should be consulted with as soon as possible. At times, fast legal actions can be undertaken to get your charges dropped or reduced, thus limiting the penalties that you may face. We provide a free case evaluation so that you understand your charges and what effective actions can be taken to safeguard your freedoms. As there are several ways you can be convicted of DUI in our state, your defense begins by knowing Georgia DUI law and the grounds on which you were arrested. This is the first area where our experience can be of lasting benefit to you or a loved one.

COMMON REASONS FOR A DUI ARREST

The most common reason for arrest is by use of what is called the "per se" feature of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A) (2012). You are prohibited from driving if you have a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of .08% or more at any time within 3 hours after driving or having physical control of a vehicle. Another way you can be convicted is if a prosecutor can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that alcohol caused you to be a less safe operator of a vehicle.

In our state, if you drive while under the influence of any type of drug to a degree that it made you drive less safely, you can be arrested for DUI. These kinds of drugs can be anything from over-the-counter medicines to those that are legally prescribed by a physician. A person can face DUI charges when under the influence of an aerosol, glue or other toxic vapor or any combination of these that make their driving less safe. In addition, you may be prosecuted if you were driving and there is any detectable amount of a controlled substance in your blood or urine. In these cases, an arrest occurs regardless of whether there was any alcohol present in your breath or blood and whether the substance caused you to be a less safe driver.

FIGHTING CONVICTION IN A DUI CASE

Whichever of these reasons for being charged apply to your case, being arrested does mean you will be convicted or have to face the penalties that could be imposed by the court. There can be a multitude of ways to defend these charges or to reduce the punishments for being found guilty. At times, roadside checkpoints are used in our state to arrest individuals on DUI charges. Although these stops by law enforcement are legal in Georgia, if the officers involved do not strictly adhere to certain procedures the validity of your stop and subsequent arrest could be brought into question.

Field sobriety tests are a routine way law enforcement looks for signs of intoxication in order to make a DUI arrest. These are tests such as making a person stand with one foot off the ground for a specified period of time, walking heel to toe in a straight line or gauging the reaction of your eyes to a moving object, such as a penlight. These tests are very subjective, depending on a police officer's interpretation of what he or she saw. Even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), who developed these tests decades ago, admits that they are not fully reliable, and the best of the tests is only 77% accurate per their studies. Richard S. Lawson is a graduate of the NHTSA's field sobriety test instructor course and we use this knowledge to find and utilize the flaws in these tests.

DUI DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN ROSWELL

Blood and breath tests, commonly used to determine intoxication levels, can also be faulty in how they are conducted and what the machines are reading. When you were given your license to drive, you agreed to submit to these tests per Georgia's Implied Consent Law. If you refuse to take the test or fail it, you will be arrested for DUI. You cannot be forced to take these tests but refusals or alleged refusals can result in your license being suspended and be used against you in your DUI case. Backed by thousands of cases worth of experience, we work hard to develop and implement the best defense strategy possible for your case.

Contact an Alpharetta DUI Lawyer from our firm to get more information about how we can defend you against DUI charges.

ALPHARETTA RESOURCE LINKS

DUI Info Center
Facts About Alpharetta
Map of Alpharetta, GA