How do DUI attorneys sleep at night?
trer asked:
I see advertisements for attorneys who specialize in getting people off DUI arrests. I’m pretty sure most police are not randomly giving out DUIs, there’s usually a good reason to get these drunk drivers off the road…but if they end up getting off because of a technicality even though they did drink and drive, how is this good for us?
They sleep well in Big Houses
lolz i wonder that sometimes too. lolz
They sleep the same way politicians, Judges and cops do.
Yea they just have no morals or ethics.. and they make a lot of money because there are lots of DUIs and people don’t seem to realize that they most likely won’t win a DUI case
On a big pile of money… They feed on people like vultures because that’s what they are… I agree with you though it makes no sense to me that they defend those morons that drink and drive… Until one of there family members are maimed or killed by a drunk driver they will continue to defend them.
Just like the attorneys that specialize in criminal law and get murders and child molesters off, and divorce attorneys whose only interest is dragging out the process so they can end up with most of the estate.
They are sub human, and their only interest is in making money.
The idea is that everyone is entitled to a fair trial, but today our society has evolved into an idea that only the police and district attorney has to play by the rules and the attorneys can cheat and lie.
Everyone is entitled to a fair trial. The very best way to insure that even the worse criminals get due process, which they are Constitutionally guaranteed, is to have a lawyer prepare and argue their case. Very, very few DUI defendants are found not guilty. Real life is not like you see on TV or conjure up in your imagination.
That is the American system. Millions have died insuring your right to a fair trial.
Perhaps how they render “justice” in communist China is more to your liking? I hear that when they execute someone over there, they send a bill to the family for the bullet.
People bitch and moan about lawyers - until they themselves are accused of a crime. Then, they are on their knees thanking God that they have one.
Edit: it sounds that you believe that many DUI defendants are “getting off” on technicalities. That notion is simply untrue. The vast majority of DUI defendants either plead guilty or are found guilty at trial and, at least in my State, do jail time, pay heavy fines, and have their licenses suspended.
I invite you to take a day off work or school and go down to your city or county court and watch a DUI trial. What you will observe may make you happier with the system. Moreover, I doubt that you will feel further compelled to ask anymore questions like this one.
Everyone deserves representation, and the burden of proof is on the prosecution. If they can’t meet the burden of proof, whose fault is that?
In the meantime, the accused has taken a big financial hit anyway, and probably more often then to, the lesson is enough to straighten them out.
For those that continue to drink and drive, well, hopefully the prosecution has learned a lesson about meeting its burden of proof as well.
If you don’t approve of the system that forces the burden of proof on the prosecution, well, you are swimming against the tide of legal system development since the Magna Carta some 800 years ago, but you are always welcome to start a campaign for a Constitutional amendment to change it. The Constitution itself explains exactly what the process for that is.
Good luck to you!
This may not be what you want to hear, but I think that it’s a story worth reading and I hope that it helps:
I am an attorney and prosecuted exclusively DUIs at the beginning of my career.
95% of the time, most people just pled “no contest”, which is the same as pleading guilty. Most of the time, the defense attorneys would advise their client to plead no contest because it would be pointless to take the matter to trial (because the evidence was so overwhelming) and they could get a better plea deal by pleading early. The defense attorney often did their client (and the tax payers) a service by encouraging them to plead no contest early on. From our perspective, there was nothing more aggrevating, time consuming, and wasteful than taking a defendant to trial who represented himself.
So I liked a lot of the criminal defense attorneys, and I thought that they were helpful at least some of the time.
That said, you should also think about the situations where the defendant in a DUI case is actually innocent. I had more than one case where I prosecuted someone but had doubts about their guilt.
I actually had one case where I was relieved that the jury found the guy not guilty since, by the end of the trial, I was convinced that the guy had been wrongly accused. Basically, the defense attorney in that one was successfully able to show that the arresting officer confused who the driver was… we had effectively prosecuted someone for being the designated driver. Fortunately in his case, the system worked.
So how did the defense attorney in that case sleep at night? Just fine. She did her job, I did mine, the jurors did theirs, the judge did his, the cop told the truth and did his, the system worked, and everyone slept that night. The people who should have trouble sleeping at night are the people who are too lazy, dishonest, corrupt, or blind to do their job within the justice system–that’s when innocent people go to jail and criminals walk free.
Because this is the US, and we all have constitutionally guaranteed rights. One of those rights is the right to a fair trial and to have the charges proven.
Would you want the police and court to just be able to do whatever they want, without any safeguards for those who are innocent?
Brian, Barry C, and Uhlan are completely correct in their posts. I hope one of those three gets selected as the Best Answer, since they are the best answers.