You should consult with an attorney prior to entering a no contest plea to an OVI charge. Hiring an attorney will ensure that your rights are protected and that your case is handled properly. If you are convicted of a first-offense OVI, you are facing a minimum of three days in jail (up to six months). Your attorney can advocate to the judge for you to complete a three-day Driver Intervention Program in lieu of serving three days in jail. If you are charged with OVI and convicted, your driver’s license could be suspended for a minimum of six months, up to a maximum of three years. The court may also order you to pay a fine between $375.00 and $1,075.

There are a few options that you have regarding clearing up your warrant for DUI and handling your case. Hiring a Cleveland DUI / OVI defense attorney will ensure that your matter is handled properly and effectively. Your attorney can file a Motion to Withdraw Capias with the court, asking the court to lift your warrant. Most courts will schedule a hearing and will not lift the warrant until after the hearing. Your attorney can also file a motion with the court asking the court to allow your attorney to appear at the hearing on your behalf.

If the court grants the Motion to Conduct Hearing in Absentia, your presence will be excused from the hearing. Once your warrant is lifted, your attorney will have the opportunity to speak to the prosecutor regarding your underlying charge. Your first court hearing for DUI would most likely be scheduled after your warrant has been handled. Depending on the court, if your attorney has worked out your case with the prosecutor, the court may allow your attorney to enter a plea on your behalf, requiring a signed affidavit from the Defendant.

We find it surprising how often a defense based on the police officer’s failure to properly give our clients their Miranda warnings actually comes up. First, what is a Miranda warning? Most people know that you need to be told you have the right to remain silent and have an attorney represent you. However, most people do not realize how important it is to have a Cleveland DUI attorney representing them from the very moment they come in contact with the police. Miranda applies to the moment you are in custody.

What is custody? Custody can be when you have handcuffs placed on you, or when you are no longer free to leave. The point at which you are no longer free to leave is very important to your case because if the police question you after custody has happened nothing you say should be used against you unless you are given the proper warnings. Unfortunately, many attorneys overlook this very important aspect of DUI defense.

In a recent example, we successfully defended a young professional who was pulled over for allegedly making a right turn on red. The officer took the woman and placed her in his cruiser. At this point, he began to interrogate her regarding how much alcohol she had consumed. At first, she denied consuming any alcohol, however, after a few moments she relented and admitted to having a drink. Because she was in custody, and because she was not given the warnings, the judge threw out every piece of evidence that was obtained from that point forward. This means the field sobriety tests, the admission to drinking, and the breath test.

That is why it is so important to know your rights and to invoke them.

No, it will not. Unlike a prior DUI conviction within the past six years, a prior conviction for physical control will not enhance the penalties on your current DUI.

Penalties for a first DUI include:

• Minimum of 3 days in jail or a driver intervention program
• Possibility of up to 6 months in jail
• A fine of up to $1,075
• A license suspension of 6 months
• Possibility of a suspension of up to 3 years
• The possibility of required assessment and treatment for substance abuse
• The possibility of having restricted plates and/or an interlock device

So, while a prior conviction for physical control will not enhance the penalties on your current DUI, you still face severe penalties that can greatly impact your life. A DUI attorney can help you fight these charges.

Often, attorneys can rattle off technical terms that normal people have no idea what they mean. One of the most important terms that you need to know, aside from dismissal, is the term discovery in your DUI case.

Discovery is the process under Criminal Rule 16 where we force the government to give us all of the evidence that hurts your case and helps your case. The prosecution is not allowed to hide material from your attorney. We obtain the police report, a crash report in accident cases, and blood /breath/urine test results. If you performed field sobriety tests we obtain those test results. If there were witnesses or a 911 call, we also obtain that.

Once we obtain all of the evidence that we believe we are entitled to receive, we begin the process of reviewing and analyzing it. Just because a police officer says that you were intoxicated does not mean you were. We can tell you that you would be shocked at the number of times the facts did not match the police report. If you took a breath, urine, or blood test, we go to the source of that test. If it is a breath-testing machine, we analyze it with our experts. Same thing for blood and urine testing. We actually go to the lab.

After the discovery process has been completed we file, if appropriate for your case, what is called a motion to suppress evidence. In this motion, we request that the court throw out any evidence that was not properly collected and ultimately your entire case.

One of the most common mistakes people make in their OVI case is going into court alone, without an attorney, and trying to explain their case to the judge. Most people do this because they believe that if they enter a plea of guilty or no contest that the judge can reduce their DUI charges. This is completely false and often leads to an individual going to jail, rather than home, that day. The second mistake is going with an attorney who does not devote a large portion of their practice to DUI defense. One way to determine if you are dealing with such an attorney is in what they charge. Do they charge incredibly low rates compared to other attorneys ($750)?

The right attorney can make all of the difference in your DUI / OVI case.

If you make the right choice to hire an attorney who devotes a major portion of their practice to DUI defense, your attorney can be all the difference between a positive result and the other alternatives. For instance, many people and attorneys do not know that one of the major breath-testing instruments (the Intox. 8000) is a breath-testing machine that is being defeated all over the state. We have beat it in at least six different municipal courts. Most people, and many attorneys, believe that if you fail a breath test there is no hope for your case. If that was true we would not be in this business and would not have the strong reputation that we have.

This is a subject that we spend extra attention to because it is one of the top questions our clients ask us when they call, and it is a completely justifiable question to ask.

Money is important to everyone. Throughout this website, we have dedicated a lot of time to answering questions relating to how we can help protect you from all of the horrible consequences associated with a DUI/OVI conviction.

As former prosecutors, we have been on both sides of the issue—and both sides of the courtroom.

The costs associated with a DUI include:

• Attorney Fees
  We know attorneys who have practiced in this area for decades and charge $10,000 for their representation. We also know of other attorneys who only charge $750 for representation of a DUI. We are somewhere in the middle. All of our attorneys are former prosecutors, and we bring the best defense we believe you can afford for the price we charge. As a practical matter, we only charge flat fees in DUI cases because we believe that allows us two things. (1) It allows us the certainty of knowing how much we will receive in a case, and (2) it allows us to properly defend you without worrying about running the clock up at our hourly rate. We make it a point to work with clients to reach payment plans in certain cases.
• Court Costs & Fines
  In Ohio, the fines for an OVI conviction are fixed between $375-$1,075 for a first offense, and they go up into the tens of thousands from there, depending on your type of offense. As for court costs, each individual court is different. Some courts charge more for certain aspects of the case than others. Talk to your attorney about costs and fines since it could possibly be thousands of dollars. If you win your case you would not pay fines or court costs.
• Driving Privileges
  We make it a priority to preserve the driving privileges of our clients. Without the ability to drive to work, you could lose your job. If you have to pay someone to drive you or take public transportation while your case is pending, you could spend thousands of dollars and lose countless hours commuting.
• Insurance Costs, Points on Your License
  Most people, and even some attorneys, do not know this, but a DUI conviction carries with it a mandatory 6 points on your license. If you are under the age of 21, you are going to be required to acquire high-risk insurance at an incredibly high cost. Even if you are of age at the time of your arrest, if you pick up 6 points on your license, your insurance is going to go up by a considerable amount.

It is difficult to have a DUI reduced to a reckless operation, but it is not impossible. Many attorneys make the mistake of simply going into the first hearing and begging for a reduced charge.

When this happens, prosecutors will typically dig their feet in and refuse to offer a reduced charge. In fact, many courts will refuse to allow a reduction if the case is not handled properly.

So how does a lawyer get your OVI / DUI charges reduced to a reckless operation? Experience and preparation are two of the main keys involved but it goes beyond that.

In order to obtain a reduction of a DUI to a reckless operation charge, you must demonstrate that not only are you a person who deserves a lesser charge, but that there is some flaw in your DUI case that will make it difficult for the prosecutor to win. We’re skilled at finding those flaws.

Many people struggle with the overwhelming pressure they face when they have been charged with a DUI or OVI. People typically fall into one of two camps when it comes to hiring an attorney: deciding whether they should fight their case, or just throw themselves to the mercy of the court.

After speaking with one of our experienced attorneys, almost everyone realizes there is only one choice: hire an OVI offense attorney.

On DUI cases in Ohio – even for a first offense – there are certain mandatory penalties that you cannot escape. Jail, driver’s license suspension, points on your license, and party plates, just to name a few.

If you go to your arraignment and enter a plea of guilty, you will be confined for 3 days, 6 days, or 180 days, depending on your type of case. With an attorney, you can fight and potentially avoid these penalties.

Recently, we sat in court and watched people enter pleas of no contest and beg the judge for mercy. Even when judges are truly kind people, they simply have no choice due to how the laws are written.

Even if you are a physician who blew over the second legal limit can be sentenced to 3 days in jail and ordered to spend 3 days in a confined driver education course. Teachers who refuse the breath test can be sentenced to spend 6 days in jail.

In Ohio, there are different charges related to driving while under the influence. One charge is for taking a breath test and having a result of 0.08 or over. This is what is referred to as a per se limit.

Ohio lawmakers have decided that having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or above should be a criminal offense. Additionally, there is a separate charge for just driving under the influence.

If you take a breath test and blow under 0.08, a law enforcement officer can still charge you with a DUI if they feel that you were under the influence of alcohol at the time you were driving, even if you were not at or over the per se limit.

The majority of OVI arrests involve failed breath tests, but more police departments are using blood draws to try to prove their cases after a Supreme Court ruling.

The legal limits are essentially the same as breath volumes but instead of measuring deep lung alcohol levels the forensic toxicologist is measuring the amount of alcohol in the person’s system.

Just like breath testing, blood testing has two legal limits. If you test over the first legal limit of 0.08 but under 0.17, you face a mandatory minimum of 3 days in jail.

If you test over 0.17, you face a mandatory minimum of 6 days in jail. Failing either test involves the potential loss of your license for up to 3 years.

We start at the beginning.

Why did the police officer pull you over? Did the police officer have a reasonable suspicion you committed a traffic violation? We then move to what happened at the door of the car.

What did the officer see, smell, and observe? Note: Your 2255 form says, without a doubt, that the officer observed an “odor of alcohol, bloodshot, glassy eyes, SFTS.”

Check it. We’re sure we’re right. Now that you saw that your 2255 says almost exactly what we said, maybe with slurred speech or weaving thrown in, you have to ask…how do we know that? Officers always say that in DUI arrests

From the observations, we attack the reasons for getting you out of the car and the field sobriety tests. You would be shocked at how horrible some officers are at performing these tests when we ask them to perform the same tests in a courtroom.

If you took a breath/urine/blood test we attack the means, methods, mode, and science. The bottom line is that a DUI can be beaten, but it takes a trained and experienced attorney who is not winging it in court. You need a professional.

After your arrest, the police officer will let you know when to appear for your first court date. Often, we are able to get our clients out of this first date. If the court requires your presence, we will be there with you, and for you.

Many people make the mistake of entering a plea of guilty or no contest on this first date for two reasons: (1) everyone else is doing it that day, (2) MADD and SADD have put so much propaganda out there that people believe these cases are impossible to win. It is important that you plead not guilty at your arraignment.

These cases need to be handled professionally and in a very specific way. You have too much at risk to do the prosecutor’s job for them.

The prosecutor has a huge burden in these cases, as discussed in other pages on this website, the prosecutor has to prove a whole litany of things that are extremely difficult to prove.

This is a fair, and important, question. When going to a doctor, you want to know what your odds of a full recovery are. It makes perfect sense that with so much on the line, you want to know what is the likelihood that we can win your DUI case.

During our first call, we are gathering information. When we begin to work on your case, we gain insights into your case.

The good news is, when we have gathered all of the evidence, and taken into consideration who the judge is, what jurisdiction you are in, who the officer is, and who the prosecutor is, we can then give you an opinion on what can happen. In fact, we will give you advice on whether you should take a plea or take the matter to trial.

By calling us for a free consultation, you will begin defending yourself from these often life-altering charges. Our law firm is comprised of former prosecutors and a Board Certified Criminal Trial Attorney – all with extensive knowledge and experience in representing people with Ohio DUI charges.

We always recommend hiring the professional services of an attorney who practices in this area because the stakes are so high. Even on a first offense, you are facing the possibility of going to jail for a minimum of 3 days up to a maximum of 180 days.

On top of this, you could possibly face losing your license between 6 months to 3 years. Just think about how difficult it will be to maintain employment after your conviction, run errands, and other important trips.

It is important to speak to an attorney before your first court date as your defense starts the moment you leave the police station. If a family member calls us shortly after a DUI arrest, we can start building a defense before you leave jail.

Read our blog about this to learn more: What Happens After a DUI Arrest?