Winston-Salem DWI and DUI Lawyer

Tips From Our Winston-Salem DWI Attorneys

What to do During a DWI Stop to Protect Your Rights

There are several “best practices” you may want to adopt that will help if you are pulled over for a DWI. You will want to ensure your actions do not give the officer any additional evidence of “impairment“. The first thing an officer will likely do is to ask to see your license and registration. The best place to keep these documents is clipped to your visor, so you can easily get them and hand them to the officer. If you have the documents in the glove box, it will take longer to get them, and when you lean over, it could give the officer the opinion that your balance is affected, which could be attributed to impairment.

Everything below is designed to help you prevent the state from acquiring the evidence it needs to convict you of DWI:

• Don’t make casual conversation with the officer; be polite of course, but anything you say beyond the minimal “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” could give the officer grounds to say your speech was slurred.
• Officers are trained to ask you distracting questions if they suspect you’re impaired. They’re checking to see if you’re easily confused.
• Avoid eye contact if possible (avoiding eye contact makes it harder for the officer to testify that your eyes were red and glassy).
• Refuse to perform any field sobriety tests. The law does not require that you perform these “tests”, and all they can do is assist in establishing probable cause for your arrest.

DWI and Its Effect on Your Driver’s License

If you are convicted of a DWI, you will lose your license, bottom line. However, it is important to note the difference between being charged and being convicted. If you are charged with a DWI, you will get your day in court, and with the right Winston-Salem DWI Attorney, you may be able to avoid conviction. Even if you are convicted of a DWI and lose your driver’s license, the length of the license suspension depends on several factors. For more information on license suspensions or sentencing factors, visit our Hardship Licenses and Limited Driving Privileges page and our DWI Sentencing Factors page. Because the consequences of even a first-time DWI conviction are so severe, it is imperative you retain a knowledgeable and experienced Winston-Salem DWI Attorney to lessen or mitigate the penalties.

The different sentencing levels and the length of suspensions vary greatly depending on several factors. A conviction could cause a loss of your driving license for 1 year at the lowest level, up to permanent suspension for habitual offenders. If you are being charged with a DWI in Forsyth County, you need an experienced DWI Attorney who can help limit or avoid the penalties, an attorney who knows the people and the procedures of the Forsyth County Court where you have been charged. With over 30 years of experience, at McMinn, Fradin, Gray & Logan, we are confident we can handle your case with professionalism and expertise you are unlikely to find elsewhere. Contact us today if you are ready to see what an experienced Winston-Salem DWI Attorney can do for you.

Your DWI Defense Options

There are several elements that the prosecution must prove in order to successfully win a DWI case in Winston-Salem. The rule of law states the prosecution needs to show you were driving the vehicle and that you were impaired due to an impairing substance (drugs or alcohol) at the time. They will need to do this by establishing your Blood Alcohol Concentration either via an official breath test or blood test.

The defense can try to suppress or keep out evidence, thus preventing the prosecution from proving its case. There are many defense strategies in DWI cases, but your attorney should attempt to achieve the following:

• Dropped or dismissed case
• A not-guilty ruling
• If the evidence is truly stacked against you, your attorney should seek reduced or alternative sentencing

Below are some common defenses we use for Winston-Salem DWI charges:

• Lack of a reasonable articulable suspicion to stop you
• No probable cause to arrest – for example, the field sobriety test results were successfully challenged and suppressed
• Not enough evidence of impairment – for instance, the BAC results were challenged and suppressed on procedural grounds