Untruths must not be your downward spiral says Fairfax DUI lawyer

Untruths (UTs) arise in too many Virginia DWI and other criminal cases, whether from police, defendants or both. As a Fairfax DUI lawyer, I know that UTs by defendants can happen in speaking with police and with your lawyer. So long as you know and assert your Fifth Amendment Constitutional right to remain silent with police, you will not be at risk of telling UTs to law enforcement officers (LEOs). You are unlikely to want to decline to answer questions from your potential Fairfax DUI or Virginia DWI attorney, and that is an area where numerous defendants risk telling UTs. If you are a stickler for telling the truth, that will make it less tempting for you to tell a UT, and less likely that you will utter a UT. For those who frequently tell UTs in their personal lives, now is the time to stop, because — aside from the moral, ethical and legal aspects of it — telling UTs can get you into all sorts of hot water with the law, your reputation, job situation, and more. Among the UTs I learn about or surmise take place in Virginia DWI cases are when the driver tells police UTs that s/he did not drive, a non-driver tells LEO UTs that s/he drove, when a non-defendant insists to a lawyer that the non-defendant drove, and when the defendant tells the lawyer s/he did not drive. Another variation on this theme is for the damaging scenario of the driver and passenger switching seats before LEO arrives to your car. As a Fairfax DUI lawyer, I cannot and do not tell anyone to tell any UT.

Am I being a good samaritan or plain foolhardy to tell untruths that I was the driver when I was not?

It is foolhardy to tell a UT to anyone. In the spur of the moment in Virginia DUI cases prosecuted under Virginia Code § 18.2-266 for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, some non-drivers tell police untruths that they drove, in order to take the heat off the actual driver. Why? Perhaps because the UT-teller was not drinking  (or consumed less) when the actual driver was. Perhaps because the UT-teller thinks that the fallout from a Virginia DWI conviction will be less harsh to the UT teller than to the actual driver. Perhaps because the UT-teller was so foggy-thinking or blitzed that they did not think through their actions. Perhaps because the actual driver has no automobile insurance coverage for a car accident that was part of the incident. Perhaps because the actual driver bribed or pressured them to tell a UT. Sometimes the UT teller wakes up the next morning fully regretting their UTs. In any event, telling a UT to LEO makes the DWI defendant not only have to deal with that UT, but also with how to present the matter to their lawyer, who is not necessarily going to know whether you are telling the truth unless you have an incident video or other reliable evidence to show you are being straight with your actual or potential Virginia DUI defense lawyer. Furthermore, you are not permitted to tell the judge that you drove if you did not, which is relevant both to any testimony you might give in court, as well as with anything you say to your judge for any sentencing proceeding.

What if I was not the driver and want to tell UTs to avoid the defendant’s being harmed by the prosecution?

Perhaps less common than the non-driver telling untruths to police at the incident scene that the non-driver was the driver, is when a non-driver tries hiring a lawyer, hoping that the non-driver can replace the driver as the defendant or simply nix the anyone’s being prosecuted in the first place. Once a Virginia DUI lawyer gets real concerns about who is telling the truth about who actually drove, the attorney may not want to invite the potential headaches — for starters — from even accepting such a defense. On the one hand, it seems too common for criminal defendants to tell UTs to their actual and potential criminal defense lawyers. On the other hand, when those UTs are isolated to what the defendant tells his or her attorney in private and do not involve anything the defendant told LEOs and if the defendant is doubtful to be talking in court from the witness stand or at any sentencing, the lawyer may not feel as much hesitancy about accepting such a client.

What happens if the actual driver and I switch seats before the police officer arrives at the driver’s window?

Foolishness can have its ways of compounding the resulting harm from untruths. Sometimes a driver and their passenger will switch seats in an effort to take the heat off the actual driver. Unfortunately, if the police officer has evidence that the actual driver drove, the actual driver can still get arrested AND once you sit in the driver’s seat, you can be added as a driver (rather than substituted as the driver), because under Virginia DWI law the person sitting in the driver’s seat with the car running or the keys in the ignition, is the same as a driver.

How do I get myself out of the mess of myself or others telling untruths about who was the actual driver?

The approach of many people in seeking to cover up a lie is to cover up untruths with more lies, and each of those lies with even more UTs, to the point of being unable to keep track of which UTs have been uttered to whom when. Consequently, no easy answer exists for how you extricate yourself from your own prevarications or the UTs told by others in cahoots with you. Nonetheless, if you have engaged in material UTs with LEOs, it is all the more important for you to consult with and obtain a qualified Fairfax DUI or Virginia DWI attorney without delay Hopefully you are reading this article before ever being investigated by LEO for any matter, in which case you can follow my suggestions herein to avoid worse headaches than otherwise. If you are reading this article after you have wagged your tongue with UTs, you are maybe feeling frantic, so frantic that you might spill the beans to a friends or relatives. Beware discussing your Virginia DWI or criminal case with anyone other than your potential and hired lawyer, who is obligated to provide you confidentiality.

Do a Virginia DWI suspect’s lies bring them closer to a conviction?

David Wood brought himself closer to a conviction when he pointed to the driver seat of his car when  the police asked who drove, only later to be caught in a web of effort to convince someone else to say they drove. Wood dug himself into an even deeper hole by seeking for his fiancee to admit she was the driver, and pointed her out as the driver, even though an eyewitness said that a male had driven in this accident. Had Wood simply remained silent with his words and non-verbal communications, he may have gotten closer to an acquittal where, as here, the police found Wood standing outside of his vehicle on arrival and where the eyewitness did not whether Wood was the driver. Wood’s prevarications helped make him look all the more guilty at trial. At sentencing, the trial judge slammed Wood with ten years incarceration and seven years suspended, with a conviction for DWI over 0.20 blood alcohol concentration (BAC) with a prior DWI felony conviction, and driving on a revoked license while endangering the life or limb of another. His conviction got affirmed on appeal. Wood v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Record No. 1951-22-2, 2024 WL 1259071 (Va. App. 2024) (unpublished).

Fairfax DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz knows that a Virginia DWI prosecution is about the most serious misdemeanor charge that you can face. The stress that comes along with it can be excruciating … until you have the right Virginia DWI attorney fighting for you. Do not go to your DWI trial date alone. Call 703-383-1100 for your free in-person initial confidential consultation with Jon about your court-pending prosecution. DUI defense represents 30% of Jon’s law practice (and 99% of his law practice is criminal defense), and he has successfully defended hundreds of such defendants and taken hundreds of such cases to trial, also often obtaining great negotiated settlements and plea deals in such cases. Jon takes delivering great Virginia DUI defense so seriously that he is among the limited percentage of commonwealth DWI defenders who are members of the essential National College of DUI Defense (NCDD) or its equivalent, and who have been trained by among the nation’s top trainers to police for conducting standardized field sobriety tests (FSTs / SFSTs). Secure your consultation with Jon Katz today.