Articles Posted in DMV Issues

There are many things that can derail your legal case. Your case may be unsuccessful because you don’t have enough factual evidence on your side. Your case could also be unsuccessful because of procedural deficiencies. One of the most preventable ways to fail is because you decide to handle your case yourself, and you make procedural errors that you could have avoided with representation from an experienced California DMV attorney. Achieving a successful result in your license suspension case, or any type of legal matter, involves more than just knowing the facts of your case and being able to present them. It involves having a familiarity with the procedural rules of your case and making sure that you follow them.

The case of one East Bay driver serves as a useful story of caution on this point. The case began when a local police officer in Antioch responded to the scene of a two-vehicle accident and identified what he believed was alcohol on the breath of one of the drivers. The officer also thought that that driver’s eyes appeared bloodshot and watery. The driver, Michael, told the officer that he’d last had alcohol more than five hours before the accident, when he’d had two drinks with vodka in them. He indicated to the officer that he’d been awake for 21 hours.

Michael underwent a blood test some 2½ hours after the accident. The test yielded a BAC of 0.08. The DMV suspended his license. After Michael elected to have an administrative hearing, the hearing officer upheld the suspension. The driver took his case to the trial court but was still unsuccessful. He appealed to the Court of Appeal, but once again the suspension was upheld. Significant parts of what plagued Michael’s case on appeal came down to procedural problems, which can be a common shortcoming when people decide to handle their own cases without legal counsel.