Questioning a Police Officer’s Observations During Your Virginia DUI Case (Part A)

Fighting your Virginia DUI charge is not an impossible feat. In fact, with a good Virginia DUI attorney and the right defense, you can beat or reduce your Virginia DUI charges.

One popular argument for a Virginia DUI attorney to use is to challenge the validity of a police officer's observations. Oftentimes, inexperienced DUI lawyers don't even respond to an arresting officer's testimony. However, observations such as, the odor of alcohol on a driver's breath or the redness of a defendant's eyes, can and should be questioned during your DUI trial.

Alcohol actually has no odor!

As a matter of fact, alcohol is odorless. What is commonly thought to be the smell of alcohol is the other ingredients that comprise an alcoholic beverage. A beer with 4.7% percent alcohol will actually smell the same as a beer with no alcohol, and therefore a testimony of alcoholic odor on the breath is not proof of a DUI. Thus, at a Virginia DUI trial, when an officer testifies that the smell of alcohol was detected on the driver's breath, it can be deduced that they have no true recollection of what odor they actually smelled.

Therefore, the odor of alcohol can be argued against as a probable cause for the arrest. If a judge agrees that your alleged "odor of alcohol" was not enough to constitute "probable cause" for your arrest, your DUI charges may be dismissed.

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• If you want to try to get your license back, you have less than 5 days to hire a lawyer.
• Your trial date is almost always less than 2 months from the date you were charged and, thus, waiting just 14 days to hire a lawyer could severely handicap your defense

• Who is going to be my lawyer at trial?
• What are his/her qualifications?
• Are they AV rated? "AV" = Highest rating possible for Legal Ability and Ethics
• Are they a former prosecutor?
• Where did they prosecute?