Court supervision is a DUI defendant’s one get-out-of-jail-free card. You get one, and one only, in your lifetime. It doesn’t mean you get off scot-free. It means you have a year or two to prove to a judge that you can stay out of trouble and, if and when you can do that, the DUI arrest falls off your record.
When it comes to garden-variety DUIs — where there are no additional aggravating circumstances like a crash — court supervision is very common (64 percent of all DUI arrests and a whopping 79 percent for first-time DUI defendants).
So don’t be impressed by an attorney who promises court supervision. That’s baseline legal representation, and yet we hear it all the time. Attorneys are so eager to sign you on as a client that they’ll focus on the most common outcome: e.g. “I’ll get your license back and get you court supervision. Don’t sweat it!”
WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR INSTEAD
A conscientious defense attorney should make no promises. That’s a given but worth
stating off the bat. What you want to hear instead is an attorney that will look at every last detail in your case starting with the reason you were stopped.
Did the officer have reasonable cause to pull you over?
How about the field-sobriety tests? A good attorney should scrutinize any results. Those tests are incredibly hard to pass, especially under stress; and often defendants don’t exhibit signs of intoxication even if they were ultimately arrested.
Blood testing is becoming more common these days, so it’s important for your attorney to ensure the samples were tested and handled properly.
And don’t forget to consider basic Miranda rights, you know, the whole “You have the right to an attorney” thing you hear in movies and TV.
We all have that right and while it’s become such an integral part of our legal system, police and prosecutors have made the error in inappropriately communicating with defendants.
FINAL THOUGHT
Don’t take any of this for granted. DUIs are big business in courtrooms across Illinois and the country. It’s very easy for an inexperienced attorney to shuffle cases on through. And unfortunately for most people, you wouldn’t even know it.
Don’t be a victim of the “I-can-get-you-supervision” variety of DUI defense.
