Maybe you had a few beers with the after-work crowd at your favorite watering hole. You're trying to drive home as inconspicuously as possible when all of a sudden, you see those blue lights flashing in your rearview mirror.
Your day is about to get substantially worse. The police officer approaches and after asking for your license and registration, suspects that you've been drinking. Should you attempt to perform the field sobriety tests that they ask you to do?
If you plan to drink when you go out, the best thing you can do for yourself is to make sure you have a ride to get home. If you decide to drink and drive, you could find yourself on the wrong side of the law.
Illinois law is hard on those who drink and drive or drive while impaired. Why? Their negligence could lead to serious crashes that hurt them or others.
Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.
Drive High, Get a DUI.
You know you’re in a realm of challenge and uncertainty when you’re pulled over in your car by an Illinois state trooper or police officer and directed to blow into a breathalyzer device.
That enforcement tool is of course applicable in situations where law enforcers suspect that a motorist has been driving drunk. Breathalyzers are a standard tool employed in roadside DUI encounters, with the blood-alcohol-content (BAC) readings they display often serving as the foundational evidence that secures drunk driving convictions.
We imagine at the established Illinois criminal defense firm of Sullivan Law in Fairview Heights that most readers of our blog view the answer to today’s above headline query obvious.
A representative response might simply be this: because one affects mature individuals and the other is focused upon kids, and adults and children are far from the same.
If Illinois and Chicagoland police stop you on suspicion of driving under the influence, refusing to submit to a breathalyzer or field sobriety tests will initiate serious consequences, and often these are worse than being found of guilty of driving under the influence.
When law enforcement pulls over a driver, he or she faces stark choices. Refusing to take the sobriety or blood test is no way to escape a DUI charge. The police will immediately arrest you and suspend your driver’s license for refusing a breath test. After you’ve been arrested, the police can legally demand you take a sobriety test.
When a lawyer looks to defend a client accused of possession of a controlled substance, there are three main issues that come to the fore: type of drug, who had possession and how it was obtained by law enforcement.
Federal law has supremacy over state laws, so states have adopted the five-tiered federal schedule in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970:
A criminal record can seriously impact your life. It hurts your prospects when applying for a job, housing or trying to get financial aid. Even if you were not convicted of a crime, a criminal charge generally shows up on a background check.
However, you may be eligible to have your record either expunged or sealed, depending on your circumstances. With an expungement, a criminal record is destroyed and is no longer be accessible to anyone. When you have a record sealed, the record still exists, but is not available to the public, though law enforcement has access.
You see the lights in your rearview mirror, hear the sirens and your heart races. Having a police officer is a stressful experience whether you’ve done something wrong or not. Knowing how to handle yourself can help make a traffic stop more tolerable while not incriminating yourself.
The best way to avoid incriminating yourself is to know when to speak to the police officer and when to consult with a lawyer. While it’s wise not to speak to the police without a lawyer after they’ve placed you under arrest, there are other times when answering police questions is less likely to incriminate you.
Men often feel like they have little chance to defend themselves in a domestic violence case. They are often stereotyped as being the culprits in a familial or couple dispute that turns into a physical attack. In reality, men are victims of domestic violence and physical assaults almost as much as women.
Illinois can have some harsh charges for those with domestic violence convictions. If you potentially face charges in this category, it can be very difficult to recover from the penalties. As you construct your defense against this allegation, there are a couple of key steps you must take to ensure the best result.
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Sullivan Law, PC 10326 Lincoln Trail Fairview Heights, IL 62208 Phone: 618-277-1400 Fax: 618-293-6266 Fairview Heights Law Office Map
