DUI Procedure in Akron, Ohio: Why It Is Important to Hire a Qualified Attorney

If you've been arrested for DUI in Akron, Ohio, you should know that penalties will be stiff. In order to properly defend yourself from these charges, you need an experienced attorney knowledgeable about the ins and outs of DUI law in Akron. By law, your first court appearance, known as the arraignment, must be set within five business days of your arrest. One of the first priorities is to get you back on the road for work and/or school. With your first DUI arrest, your eligibility to drive will depend on whether you failed a breath, blood or urine test or whether you refused to take any test. If you fail a chemical test, you will be facing a 15-day hard license suspension, meaning you will be ineligible to drive for 15 days after your arrest. If you refuse a chemical test, the hard suspension is for 30 days. Once your hard suspension is up, you will be eligible to petition the courts for limited driving privileges. Some jurisdictions will allow you to apply for driving privileges prior to the end of the hard suspension time and have the privileges post-dated for the first day you would be eligible to drive. That’s one of the reasons you do not want to delay in getting an attorney to represent you. Hire him early and let him get to work for you.

The next thing your attorney will do after your arraignment is obtain discovery. This is just another way of saying he will gather evidence. Normally, the prosecutor will hand over the evidence they have against you that was collected the night of your arrest, including various police reports documenting their observations of you. Most jurisdictions have special DUI forms for the police to report on your appearance as well as how you performed on the requested field sobriety tests. As helpful as the evidence turned over by the prosecution may be, most times, that is not all the relevant evidence related to your case. A good DUI attorney will perform his own independent investigation as well as collect evidence from the prosecution. A good DUI attorney will request any video from the night of your arrest, including video from the dashboard camera in the police cruiser and video from the police station. The attorney should also request records regarding the calibration and maintenance of the breathalyzer used to perform the chemical breath test on you as well as confirm the certification of the breathalyzer. Certification of the police officer should also be obtained to determine if he or she was qualified to perform the breath test on you.

If you have been arrested for a DUI in Akron, the Akron DUI Attorneys with Suhre & Associates can assist with your DUI defense strategy and efforts to regain driving priviledges after a license suspension for a Akron DUI.