Creating a winning DWI defense involves taking the right steps after a DWI arrest and hiring a skilled DWI attorney to help you create a solid defense to fight your charges. You can expect the best outcome if you have a professional and experienced DWI attorney. However, depending on how you conduct yourself after a DWI stop or arrest, you also play a crucial role in your case's outcome. Texas law does not require you to hire an attorney to represent you in your DWI case. However, you should not go it alone because you do not have the necessary advocacy skills or legal knowledge to win your DWI case.
The following are the typical steps you should take to win the defense against a DWI charge:
Understand What Is At Stake
You must first know what is at stake to win a DWI case. If you fail to understand and acknowledge what is at stake in a DWI case, you cannot devote the necessary resources, attention, and time needed for a successful defense. Knowing the value of winning is one thing that determines success in your DWI charge. Also, if you know what you could lose following a conviction, you will be willing to gather essential resources to win your DWI charge. A DWI conviction does not only lead to a jail term, hefty fines, and criminal sanctions. A conviction could affect your life in other ways, including abrupt collateral repercussions that could be more severe than the standard DWI penalties. The collateral implications of a DWI conviction are:
- Make you lose child custody.
- Loss of friends, mentors, and networks.
- You could lose awards and honors.
- Make it hard to access student aid.
- It can be hard to rent an apartment.
- You could lose your legal residency status.
- Loss of gun rights.
- Loss of security clearance.
- Make it hard to acquire certifications or professional licenses.
- Loss of career, business, or job.
- Loss of commercial driving privileges.
- Loss of your driver's license.
- Loss of pensions and other benefits.
The repercussions of a DWI charge are severe and could negatively influence your life. When you know the repercussions outlined above, you will be determined to do what it takes to win your DWI case.
You should never underestimate a DWI charge's negative consequences and permanent impacts. You must work towards winning because you never know what will follow when you lose. A winner always foresees what is ahead and acts decisively and swiftly.
Hire a Reliable DWI Attorney
After knowing the repercussions of a DWI conviction, you can acknowledge the importance of having a reliable DWI defense attorney. You need to hire a competent DWI attorney to help you avoid the high cost of a DWI charge. You cannot afford to entrust anything of great value, like your health, financial future, children's education, and spouse's physical and mental health, to an unqualified person. Because of their value, you would entrust these issues only to a highly qualified professional. If you face DWI charges, do the same with your freedom, future, and reputation.
You need a competent DWI attorney because Texas has stringent DWI laws, and winning a DWI case takes more than just closing your eyes and hoping for the best. It is also not a matter of chance. In this case, you must walk with the right people for the best outcome. You can only prevail in a DWI lawsuit with a compassionate, committed, trustworthy, highly skilled, and highly regarded attorney.
Work Closely With Your Attorney
Hiring a great DWI defense attorney for your DWI case and another to work with or cooperate with your attorney is one thing. Winning a DWI charge requires hiring a skilled and experienced attorney and collaborating or working closely with that attorney. You need to start by opening up to your attorney about what happened, the crime you committed, and what you did not do. Let your attorney have all the information. You could lose your DWI case if you fail to tell your attorney the truth. Generally, cooperation with your attorney starts with disclosing what transpired.
You also need to listen to your DWI attorney. Your attorney will likely caution you against sharing your offense-related details with another person unless he/she allows you to do so. Do not taint your defense by discussing issues regarding your DWI conviction with strangers. Your attorney will also notify you about the following:
- Vehicle ignition interlock devices.
- Alcohol-awareness programs.
- Attending the court hearings.
- What the court requires of you for bail conditions.
Do not ignore your attorney's guidance on when to attend the hearings, how to behave while in court, and what to bring to court. If your attorney requests you provide special education, employment, or medical records, ensure you avail yourself of them. Similarly, do not fail to comply if your attorney asks you to meet with examiners, counselors, or probation officers.
You also need to read and respond to your attorney's communications promptly. If you receive a text or email from your attorney, you need to read it immediately. Respond if it requires a response, either no or yes, or some other information. Most individuals facing DWI charges lose their cases because they fail to follow their attorneys' instructions when they know or should have been aware of the repercussions. People facing DWI charges seek attorneys' counsel for a reason: to do as they are advised and to listen to what the attorney says. If you work closely with or cooperate with your attorney, it will be easier for you to win your DWI charge.
Allow Your Attorney To Do Their Work
Typically, in a DWI charge, the work of an attorney is to advise, instruct, and educate the defendant. You must believe in your attorney as an expert in legal matters since your attorney has your best interests at heart. You cannot negotiate a favorable outcome or plea bargain with the prosecutor who accused you of DWI. Instead, your attorney does the negotiations.
You cannot research, write, and present a motion to suppress illegally obtained evidence. Your DWI attorney can do that. You also cannot identify, prepare, subpoena, and examine experts and witnesses or request and discover the prosecutor's exonerating evidence. Your attorney can do these things better on your behalf.
If you seek the services of a reputable DWI attorney, you should trust that he/she is doing all the highlighted tasks and many other crucial tasks. A skilled and reputable DWI attorney will do these essential tasks with the highest diligence and skill. When you hire a DWI attorney, you must allow them to do their work while you offer support, appreciation, and respect.
Avoid distraction, discouragement, and complaining. You should also avoid deterring, doubting, and delaying your attorney. Leave everything in their hands instead of putting matters in your hands and discarding the only opportunity for a sound DWI defense. Do not attempt to do the attorney's work because the outcome will likely be detrimental. Trusting your DWI attorney will increase your case's likelihood of a positive outcome.
Fulfill All Bail Conditions And Other Release Terms
Your attorney has a lot of critical work to do during a DWI hearing. You cannot win a DWI charge without consulting a skilled DWI attorney. However, you also have vital work to do while your DWI charge remains pending. You must do more than hire the best attorney; you must cooperate with and trust them. What you do or fail to do could significantly affect the results of your DWI charge. Your attorney's work is critical, but yours is also essential.
In addition to hiring and working closely with a DWI attorney, you must meet all conditions attached to bail. According to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 17.15, the judicial officer at arraignment has the authority to set bail conditions. Bail, including any bond ordered by the court, allows you to be out of custody while awaiting further hearings on the DWI charge. You are required to adhere to bail conditions once the court sets them. You could return to jail if you fail to comply with the set requirements. Bail is a commitment to ensure that you do as the court orders, including appearing before the court at any time required. The court also imposes bail to safeguard the victim and society. Bail conditions for a DWI case could include the following:
- Home confinement or home curfews.
- Avoiding other criminal convictions or rearrests on DWI.
- Undergoing drug and alcohol testing.
- Avoiding any abuse or use of intoxicants, including drugs and alcohol.
- Enrolling and participating in alcohol-awareness education.
- Installing and using an ignition interlock device in your vehicle.
Securing your release and staying out of custody are crucial to your winning DWI defense. However, you first have to adhere to bail conditions. Compliance will prove to the court your good conduct and lawfulness. The court will not trust you to stick to DWI laws if you fail to adhere to the court's bail conditions. The worst thing you could do to taint your DWI defense is violate bail conditions because you could be put back behind bars awaiting trial. If you return to custody, you will not have time to meet with your attorney to prepare a defense strategy.
Adhering to the conditions of bail could mean foregoing your best pastime activity, mainly if it takes you to a place where you can access drugs or alcohol. You could be forced to move from one point to another for education and drug testing.
Bail conditions can be frustrating and annoying, but you must adhere to them to avoid tainting your defense.
Prove That The Police Had Probable Cause To Pull You Over
Texas law requires the arresting officer to have probable cause to pull you over. The typical probable causes include speeding, erratic driving, and running the stop sign. If you and your attorney convince the judge that the arresting officer had no probable cause to pull you over, the judge can exclude the officer's evidence from your case.
Challenge The Results Of Your Sobriety Tests
If the arresting officer stops you and realizes you have signs of intoxication, he/she can request you submit a sobriety test. The officer can instruct you to participate in field sobriety tests or use a breathalyzer to measure your blood alcohol content. The law requires the officers to follow specific guidelines when administering field sobriety tests. If you and your attorney feel that the officer did not comply with these guidelines, you can challenge the results of the field sobriety tests. You can also challenge the reliability of the BAC results if you suspect that the breathalyzer equipment used was faulty or not well calibrated.
There could be leeway to challenge the reliability of blood, breath, and field sobriety tests, but this will depend on the unique facts of your case. You could have performed poorly in the field sobriety tests due to other factors like fatigue or illness and not due to intoxication. If you had a high blood alcohol concentration, it could have been due to acid reflux or diseases like diabetes, but not intoxication. Your attorney will explore all the possible defenses and advise you accordingly.
Choose Your Company Wisely
Winning a DUI case takes more than the cooperation between a defendant and their attorney. Whether you prevail and win a DWI case will also depend on other players like your family, friends, and experts who stand with you throughout the DWI trial.
Walking with the right people will assist you during a DWI trial because there could be dark moments when everything seems to fall apart. You will need someone to believe in you during these dark moments, even when you are on the verge of giving up. This is where your friends and relatives come in, comforting you and assisting you to walk in the right direction.
You must choose your company wisely when facing DWI charges. You do not need negativity and discouragement; you need people to encourage you.
Strategize Beyond The DWI Conviction
You and your DWI attorney should do more than win a DWI charge. Winning your DWI case will not mean much if your future remains just as bleak as before. Winning a DWI lawsuit will require convincing the court, judges, prosecution, probation officers, and expert witnesses that you have a future beyond another DWI. If you show confidence in a successful future beyond the DWI charge at hand, you can go a long way toward winning the DWI charge.
Every judge handling a DWI case wants to know whether you have a secure, flourishing, law-abiding, and safe future. If you do not have a flourishing future, you and your attorney should strategize for it and start putting it in place.
Courts require you to stay out of bars or clubs, attend alcohol education, and abstain from drugs and alcohol as conditions for bail. They use these conditions to guide you toward a better future. However, a proper DWI defense involves more than just adhering to court-ordered education. The best strategy is to show that you can uphold these positive, future-reflecting requirements without needing a court order. A DWI trial is like a training wheel for people who veered off the rails into a DWI conviction. In this case, the judges, prosecutors, instructors, counselors, and probation officers act as guardrails.
Do Not Give Up
At times, your DWI trial could discourage you. For example, you could wonder why the trial is taking so long when you want to continue your life. Perhaps you do not understand the prosecutor's stance on adjournments, plea bargains, and other issues under Texas DWI laws. However, you must continue trusting that a winning DWI defense is possible.
You can despair if you doubt whether you can win your DWI case. Despair can cause you to make the wrong decisions that could negatively influence your winning DWI defense. For example, you are likely to violate bail conditions if you are depressed. You must compose yourself and avoid listening to opposing voices around you. You must have confidence in your DWI defense strategy, even when your DWI trial seems hopeless.
Find a DWI Defense Attorney Near Me
Facing a DWI charge can be a distressing experience, and the results can significantly influence your life. However, you must understand that the prosecutor's accusations are not final, and you are entitled to a fair trial. You must also seek the services of an experienced DWI attorney because facing the legal process can be overwhelming.
At Fort Worth DWI Defense Lawyer, our team is dedicated to providing reliable DWI defense services. We will ensure you receive professional representation and help you fight for your rights. We have represented thousands of clients facing DWI charges, helping them realize positive outcomes for their cases. Call us at 817-470-2128 to talk to one of our attorneys.
