DAVID C. MASON
(425) 646-2926
Fax (425) 952-7409

DUI DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR  WASHINGTON   DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE, DWI,         RECKLESS DRIVING AND NEGLIGENT DRIVING FIRST DEGREE

DUI  DEFENSE ATTORNEY                      WASHINGTON  COVERAGE           
CALL US FOR A FREE CONSULTATION 
undefined
undefined
undefined
undefined
undefined
undefined
undefined
ATTORNEY 
WILLIAM R. BAKER
ATTORNEY AT LAW
ATTORNEY AT LAW
WASHINGTON STATE DUI DEFENSE  
(425) 462-1100
wbakerjd@comcast.net
dcmlawfirm@hotmail.com
DUI IS A COMPLEX AND UNIQUE CRIME

Driving Under the Influence or DUI is one of the most complex and unique crimes in the criminal justice system today. Washington State's DUI laws and penalties have gone through dramatic changes over the last couple decades. A DUI conviction more than any other can affect you for years to come.  

MANDATORY JAIL
Washington State has enacted some of the harshest criminal and administrative DUI penalties in the nation. The first time offender faces a variety of mandatory punishments including jail, substantial fines, loss of license ignition interlock, a double probation period, mandatory alcohol assessment, victim panel particiaption and increased insurance rates.
LOSING YOUR LICENSE
Is the most significant and immediate consequence of DUI. 30 days from the arrest, DOL will automatically suspend your license if you blow over the legal limit or refuse. This goes into effect sixty days from the arrest. Unlike other states, it will stay in effect even if you are never charged or acquited at trial.
Becomes a central player in this crime. Not only does the Department initiate the actual suspensions, it can also reissue a license with early reinstatement, issue occupational and restsrictive permits to drive, and even forgo suspension under special circumstances. The Department is also instrumental in correcting false and erroneous suspensions caused by the court issuing incorrect dispositions. 
If you have been arrested for DUI, you should immediately request a DOL hearing to contest your license suspension. You must act in thirty days or your license will be automaticially suspended. Call our office if you need  assistance.    
LICENSE REINSTATEMENT
There are numerous reinstatement requirements and some paperwork needed depending on the crime. These include an alcohol assessment, completion of alcohol drug information school or the first 60 days of treatment if needed, proof of special insurance - an SR-22 Insurance Certificate, a $150 dollar reinstatement fee, driving examination if the suspension is 1 year or longer, and proof of an installed ignition interlock if the conviction is for DUI.  
THE DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING

VISIT  OUR  OTHER  WEBSITES

DRIVING WHILE LICENSE SUSPENDED IN THE SECOND DEGREE
If caught driving on the suspended license, you will again face a gross misdemeanor punishable up to one year and a $5000 fine. If convicted while in this suspension status, your license will be suspended once again for an additional year. The following is a list of possible DUI suspension lengths.   

Very few attorneys, prosecutors or judges inform an accused that a Washington State DUI conviction is one of the only misdemeanors that you can never seal or expunge from your criminal record. In addition, rarely is the accused told that a DUI conviction will immediately disqualify them from entering Canada for a at least five years.     

50 YEARS OF COMBINED  PROSECUTOR, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND DEFENSE ATTORNEY EXPERIENCE                  
 
A PERMANENT                  INTERNATIONAL RECORD 
THE IMPLIED CONSENT STATUTE
DUI law in Washington state, like many states, is based primarily on the Implied Consent Statute. Before 1969, a Washington driver had the absolute right to refuse the alcohol test without any criminal or license consequence. This new law however proclaimed that every driver is deemed to have agreed to take the test if requested by law enforcement. The purpose of the new law was to help motivate the driver to give up a sample. Originally, the law only provided a license penalty if the driver refused the test. Now there is a consequence for giving a sample above the legal limit (.08 for adults) as well. Under the current law, the officer is required to inform the driver of certain "rights" and consequences before requesting a sample. This is done by reading and providing a standardized form. Here is an example: 
DEFECTS IN THE WARNINGS
The limitations and misleading quality of these warnings have given rise to an ongoing legal debate. Originally, in 1969, these warnings were accurate and effective as they only punished the refuser's license and warned accordingly. As the law evolved however Washington began to punish both scenarios. They also began to independently and administratively suspend the license of any driver who blew over the legal limit. In their current form, the warnings attempt to tell the driver that they will lose their license under two scenarios: (1) administratively if they blow above the limit or refuse or (2) criminally, if they are convicted in court regardless of the evidence. Unfortunately, the current form suggests that only those under 21 will lose their license if convicted. Worse yet, if an individual refuses, they actually lose their license for two years in court not one as the form suggets. They must also serve additional jail time even though the form tells them it is their absolute statutory right to refuse a sample.  
THE DOL LICENSE SUSPENSION HEARING
Once an individual requests a hearing to contest their license suspension, a hearing is generally set within 60 days. The procedural rules for the hearing are located in RCW 46.20.308. The DOL hearing is dramatically different from the criminal trial. The police report and breath ticket are admissable without witnesses under very relaxed rules of evidence. The burden of proof is significantly lower than court and while the criminal trial may involve over one hundred issues, the DOL hearing is limited to five: whether the officer had probable cause, whether the person was placed under arrest, whether the officer followed limited procedures, whether the person's sample exceeded the legal limit, and whether the person refused. In a criminal trial, the state must concede that individual physiology and machine limitations limit the effect to measure the true human breath concentration. In contrast, DOL relies exclusively on the numbers printed on the breath ticket.      
LEGAL AND POLITICAL CONTROVERSIES
Washington has one of the most misleading DUI warnings in the nation. Other states like California provide much more accurate detail in their warnings.  
Legal critics continue to challenge the structure and procedure of these unique hearings. Most administrative hearings must follow the Administrative Procedure Act. RCW 34.05. Under these rules, most hearings are run by an administrative law judge. In contrast, the DOL hearing is decided by an employee of DOL. Even worse, the hearing officer need not have any formal legal education or training. The officer acts as both prosecutor and judge. He can cross examine the driver, make objections to the evidence and even rule on his own motions. In a strange twist, he can also suspend his own procedural rules whenever he deems fit.  
FIELD SOBRIETY TESTS

More than any other piece of evidence, the Field Sobriety Tests or FSTs are perhaps the most controversial and lacking in scientific validity. Nevertheless these "tests" provide some of the most crucial evidence in the criminal case. This is especially true if defense counsel is able to suppress the breath or blood test and keep the evidence from coming before the jury. The tests also generally provide the basis for probable cause to arrest the driver.

Like many police procedures, in the early days, law enforcement used a number of various tests and procedures at the DUI roadside. In the late 1970s, the National Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA began a number of controversial studies to help standardize the methods. They also began to develop a regular uniform training and protocol in an attempt to make the "socring" or evaluation consistent. As a result, the federal agency determined that only three tests contain any measure of reliability. These are the (1) Horizonatal Gaze Nystagmus, (2) the Walk and Turn and (3) the One-Leg Stand.  

In the HGN, the driver is asked to follow an object, usually a pen light, as it is traced in front of them at a close distance. They are required to follow with their eyes while keeping their head still. The purpose of this test is to determine if the eyes fail to follow in a smooth pursuit and or begin a rapid, jerky movement prior to the object reaching 45 degrees from the center.

The One-Leg Stand is essentially a balance test. The driver is required to stand straight with his heels together and with his arms at this side. He is then asked to raise a leg approximately six inches from the ground and hold it for 30 seconds. The officer must look for swaying, arm usage, and whter the subject places their foot down before the time is up. 

The Walk and Turn is by far the most complex and difficult of the tests. The driver is asked to walk nine steps in an absolutely straight line and absolutely heel to toe. He then must make an unusual pivot turn with his left foot and walk back in the same exact manner. The officer looks for balance, gaps in step, and the ability to follow direction exactly.         

FST LIMITATIONS AND CRITICISMS
Washington courts have spoken very lttile regarding the scientific basis for this evidence. In part, most state courts have avoided the issue by declaring that these tests are only partly scientific. This ignores the fact that prosecutors and police present this evidence to jurors as if they are tried and proven technical measures of alcohol impairment.

At their very basis, these tests presume that every sober driver, regardless of age, gender, or condition, will perform these tasks without error. This despite the fact that the government has never provided a scientific sobriety baseline. These tests also presume that every officer will evaluate the individual under some standardized rubric. But once again, the government has failed to provide the tests to demonstrate this. In fact, most of the field validation studies performed by NHTSA involved officers who also observed a great deal of other evidence including protable breath tests, before making arrest decisisons. 
A FEDERAL COURT RAISES SERIOUS QUESTIONS
Much of the caselaw throughout the fifty states have validated this evidence by merely citing one another's decisions without performing detailed hearings, tests, or examinations of their own. In 2002 however, a federal district court in Maryland held a substantial hearing and performed an unprecedented analysis of all five validation studies performed by NHTSA.  US. v. Horn, 185 F. Supp.2d 530 (D.Md 2002). The court also performed an exhaustive analysis and summary of state case law across the nation. It took testimony from a number of independent scientists who not only evaluated the government's methods but performed some studies of their own.

The court came to a number of powerful conclusions. It found that these tests contain an unacceptably high forensic error rate even by NHTSA standards. While readily accepted by criminologists and law enforcement, the court found that the NHTSA studies suffer from an unnacceptable lack of peer review in the scientific community. Once the court held these procedures up to light however, it concluded that these tests do not meet the scientific validity test required under Federal Evidence Rule 702.

In one dramatic example, once officers were asked to view and evaluate isolated FST performance without the benefit of breath tests, driving and other data, their ability to accurately determine evidence of intoxication faired no better than statistical chance. Problems persisted as the same individual's "standardized clues" were evaluated dramitically different by various officers.

Finally, while acknowledging that most states have simply avoided the issue by labelling thete tests "unscientific," the court laughed at the idea that the government is not offering these tests under some cloak of "scientific credibility."            

"Despite 16 years of caselaw relating to this evidence, the number of instances where there have been factually well developed and detailed challenges to the reliability and validity of the tests is extremely small."

Judge Paul Grimm 

Washington allows an officer to detain a DUI suspect at roadside for twenty mintues before it is deemed an arrest
2200 112th Ave NE Suite 120  Bellevue, WA 98004
Despite numerous "validation" studies performed by NHTSA, they have never accounted for scoring differences amongst officers nor the basic differences in age, weight, sex, or fundamental physical condition.  
Washington State is the only state in the nation that tells its citizens it has the statutory right to refuse the BAC test then turns around and imposes extra jail for exercising that right  

This site is currently under construction. Please call our office for a free consultation.

425 646-2926

We have made this site for information purposes only. Do not  act upon this information without first seeking professional legal advice. This site does not intend to nor does it create an attorney-client relationship  

We have made this site for information purposes only. Do not  act upon this information without first seeking professional legal advice. This site does not intend to nor does it create an attorney-client relationship  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
undefined