Fairfax DUI lawyers have numerous avenues for obtaining great results in court for Virginia DWI defendants

Fairfax DUI lawyers have the choice of looking at the defensive glass as half full (or more full than that) or half empty. As a Virginia DWI lawyer, I repeatedly find defensive opportunities with Virginia DUI cases running from the simple to the most challenging, including charges of repeat offenses under Virginia Code § 18.2-270, elevated blood alcohol concentration (BAC) under the same code section, and collisions with alleged bodily injury and property damage. I also find defensive openings against risking collateral fallout from a DUI conviction, including Virginia DUI defendants with risks to their security clearances, military status, immigration status, commercial driver licenses (CDL’s), and other career issues. Suffice it to say that a Virginia DUI charge is rarely just a DWI charge, but instead is a crossroads between being a longterm headache or worse, or a shorter term hurdle. When you obtain the right Virginia DUI lawyer for you, you can enhance your chance that your matter will be in the latter category.

Can Fairfax DUI lawyers expect sweet Virginia DWI deals merely because the newer commonwealth’s attorney styles himself as a progressive?

Fairfax DUI lawyers often — but certainly not always — have a more hospitable prosecutor’s office to negotiate with in this county than with the decades-old predecessor prosecutorial administrations that were much more about addressing law and order without sufficiently considering the rights of Virginia criminal defendants. Nonetheless, Fairfax prosecutors and all Virginia commonwealths’ attorneys are sworn to serve their client, the public, and the line prosecutors do not automatically mirror their chief boss’s progressive bent. This means to fully defend yourself when charged with a Fairfax DUI offense — including obtaining the right lawyer for you — so that your defense is not about hoping to obtain a favorable plea deal from the prosecution, but instead is about a comprehensively integrated defense that focuses on being fully trial ready (which strengthens your negotiating strength), preparing for negotiations through such approaches on the defendant’s side as engaging in relevant self improvement steps, and being ready for any possible sentencing.

How do I slay my Virginia DUI prosecution?

To achieve a successful defense, Fairfax DUI lawyers take an integrated approach for those accused of Virginia DWI offenses, simultaneously addressing a multitude of challenges. With me, such defense all starts and continues with a total focus on my defendant client. This includes finding out not only what the accusations are against my client and how we will be beat his or her prosecution — or alternatively to minimize the possible fallout against the defendant — but also learning what concerns the defendant the most and to map out a tailor-made actionplan to meet the defendant’s goals. Police and prosecutors can try to oversimplify matters with such platitudes as “you do the crime you do the time” and “if he had a security clearance or needed to avoid adverse immigration consequences, why did s/he get behind the wheel after drinking in the first place?” If Virginia DWI law was going to effectively combat automobile collisions and fatalities caused by alcohol consumption without also convicting those who are not impaired, the law would use BAC as a guide and not make certain blood alcohol concentration minimums a crime (nor a mandatory jail visit) in and of themselves. On top of that, if Virginia law is actually going to effectively going to go after impaired driving, the legislature will create a true definition of intoxication and scrap the current statutory definition of intoxication — that is approved by the appellate courts — that intoxication means having consumed enough alcohol to noticeably affect one’s appearance or behavior.

Does Virginia DUI defense have a magic bullet to obtaining a great result?

No magic bullet nor effective shortcut exists for Fairfax DUI lawyers to obtain great results against such prosecutions. As I long ago overheard a man explain to his son about how to earn a good living, “You gotta bust ’em.” That does not mean that brute force rather than great persuasion does the trick to win against Virginia DWI charges, but that nothing beats being fully prepared for court. For the Virginia DWI defense lawyer, this includes arranging early to obtain discovery, which in Fairfax can be obtained early with the county prosecutor’s office’s policy of providing discovery within as short as ten business days of receiving a completed General District Court discovery order form, to the extent that the prosecutor’s office has access to such evidence. If this is a blood case, the defense needs to meet the statutory deadline for obtaining a court order to transfer a sample of the blood to a private lab for testing. For breath test cases, I timely send an information request to the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, to obtain its data on the testing of my client’s BAC (rather than merely relying on the DFS’s online data, which also needs to be checked). For my client, this includes taking such self improvement approaches as obtaining an alcohol evaluation from a substance program, completing a driver improvement class, completing several Alcoholics Anonymous live or online classes (which is not an admission of alcoholism versus an acknowledgment that the defendant will be responsible with alcohol), and attending an online Mothers Against Drunk Driving Victim Impact Panel.

Should I rely on a wet reckless plea offer or on the prosecutor’s not being ready for trial?

Fairfax DUI lawyers need to rely on complete trial readiness as their default. Such a favorable plea deal as wet reckless comes not from wishful thinking but from the prosecutor seeing the threat of a trial without a plea deal, and from hearing the defendant’s Virginia DWI lawyer persuasively explaining why such a negotiation makes sense for both parties. It is great when the prosecutor for one reason or another is not ready for trial, but being trial ready is essential, because prosecutors are often fully ready for trial, with all their witnesses lined up.

Fairfax DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz has successfully defended hundreds of people arrested for alleged DWI offenses, including charges of felony repeat offenses and alleged blood alcohol concentrations as high as 0.35, often working with expert witnesses to pursue slaying such prosecutions. Jon is among the small percentage of Northern Virginia DUI defenders who belong to the National College of DUI Defense. Jon has been trained in administering standard field sobriety tests by one of the nation’s top FST instructions to police. Call 703-383-1100 for your free in-person consultation with Jon Katz about your court-pending case.