You should always seek out professional assistance if you are staring down the barrel of a DUI charge, but not all criminal defense lawyers can get the same results. There are plenty of young attorneys who are great and older attorneys who have, for lack of a better term, lost their fastball, but trouble tends to begin if you hire a lawyer who ends up being inexperienced or downright lazy. If they aren’t on their game, they can run into some common problems while trying your DUI case. Below, we shine a spotlight on five common mistakes that poor DUI lawyers make.
Watch For These Mistakes With Your Case
Keep an eye out for signs that any of these five mistakes could or have already happened.
1. Assuming The Case Won’t Go To Trial – Some lawyers think that their client is guilty, so they just want to connect with the prosecution and see if they can cut a plea deal. It’s great if your lawyer is looking into plea options, but if they aren’t preparing for trial at the same time, you’re not going to be getting the best legal defense if you don’t like the plea options.
2. The Don’t Challenge Due Process – A bad lawyer will look at the end results and try to argue otherwise, while a good lawyer (from a company like Conoscienti & Ledbetter) will look at the totality of the circumstances that led to the arrest to find the weak point in the case. Oftentimes the best cases are made at challenging the officer’s presumption of reasonable doubt, or the due process that led to your arrest. If your lawyer isn’t exploring all potential avenues to challenge, they are doing you a disservice.
3. Not Trying To Suppress Evidence – A good defense lawyer will file pretrial motions to challenge the traffic stop or the arrest. Even if the motions are denied, they still provide the lawyer with the opportunity to question the arresting officer under oath, which allows the lawyer to get a basic understanding of how the prosecution will argue their case. Also, if the cop changes their story during trial, it can help your case, so these pretrial motions are imperative.
4. Discrediting The Cop Incorrectly – A lot of DUI cases come down to the he said, she said arguments between the driver and the police officer, and it’s an uphill battle to make your client’s testimony more believable than a law enforcement officer’s testimony, especially if the lawyer goes about it all wrong. You want to discredit the officer, but you don’t want to paint them as an outright liar. Most jurors believe cops to be truthful, so aggressively painting them as liars instead of mistaken or misremembered usually doesn’t sit well with juries. Even if the cop is being dishonest, it should be easy enough to gracefully dismantle their version of events without dragging them through the mud and potentially losing favor in the eyes of the jury.
5. Failing To Regularly Consult With Clients – In all walks of life, it’s easy to find yourself in a situation where you are more experienced at something than someone else, and therefore, you think you know best in that situation. Even if you do, if you don’t discuss your actions or at least ask others for their input, it can rub them the wrong way. This commonly happens among lawyers, who think they are doing right by their client, but aren’t actively communicating with them. If your lawyer isn’t asking about your priorities with the case or seems to be making decisions without consulting you, speak up, because this may not be in your actual best interests. A good lawyer explains why they are doing things before doing them so everyone remains on the same page.
At Appelman Law Firm, we acknowledge potential mistakes and work hard to avoid them to give our clients the best experience possible. To learn more about how we achieve this, reach out to our firm today.
