In order to both comply with the constitutional rights of the defendant and to protect the integrity of their case, if there is a question of custody and a confession in a DUI case, the police officers will read the Miranda Rights to the defendant when they handcuff them out on the road. Prior to being in custody, reading the Miranda Rights is not necessary. At that point, a person may say to the police officer — particularly if they’ve been drinking and they’re not thinking straight – that they want to waive their Miranda rights and tell them to ask what they want, but most of the time, all the police officer wants to know is how much a person had to drink, where they drank, where they came from and where they were going.
All this happens in the investigatory stage of the DUI out on the road when the person is not technically in custody or handcuffed; therefore, by the time a person is handcuffed on a DUI, the police officer usually has all the information that they need, so it is almost a non-starter to worry about Miranda warnings in a DUI case. However, if the person has been drinking, they may start blurting out more on the ride back to the police station or at police station about what they had to drink more than what they told the police officer out on the road, so simply talking too much after they’ve been arrested will be the same as waiving their Miranda rights unintentionally.
How Long Are Police Officers Allowed to Detain You For a DUI?
There is no set time that the police can detain you during a DUI investigation, but they’re governed by what is considered a reasonable period of time to do the necessary investigation given the place, time and circumstances of the stop and the time necessary to ask the driver a number of preliminary questions and do 5 or 6 field sobriety tests and the preliminary breath test out on the road. That will usually be about 45 minutes, but there is no set time.
Once the person is arrested, then it’s not a detention but an arrest and once someone is arrested and taken to jail, they will be given the breath test, fingerprinted and photographed, see a magistrate, be charged and then will be sent to the detention center until the police determine they are no longer intoxicated and is essentially “sober,” so as not to endanger themselves or others when released. That period of time can be several hours to 12 or more hours depending on the facts of each case.
Are DUI Cases Bondable or Would People Be Released on their Own Recognizance?
In Virginia, how someone is released from the detention center is solely up to the magistrate, who is a semi-judicial authority who must determine the charge or charges to be brought against a defendant and then decide whether or not they should be allowed to sign themselves out on personal recognizance, in which they pledge on their word to return the court every time required, or if they must post a bail bond to get out of jail.
The criteria most magistrates use is whether the person live locally and for how long, or are they from out-of-state, do they have a prior DUI or other prior criminal record or is this their first brush with the criminal justice system, to determine the likelihood that they will return to court for trial or that they may flee. These are all considerations a magistrate must review; obviously the better the record, the more likely they are to get out on personal recognizance. Conversely, the worse the record, more or prior charges and if they live out of state, the more likely they will be to have to post a bond.
What Are the Events And Timeline Associated With A DUI Case?
A typical first-time DUI case in Northern Virginia will take approximately 3-5 months from the date of offense to the date of disposition, depending on the facts of the case and the cleverness of the defense attorney, who virtually always wishes to continue and extend the court date which will help to “Grind” the system down. The events of a DUI in the criminal justice system are; the stop and charge date of the offense; an arraignment, in which the judge tells the individual they are facing a serious Class 1 misdemeanor criminal charge and they should obtain the services of an attorney to represent them. Subsequent to the arraignment, a court date is set usually 30 to 60 days after the arraignment, although, again, a clever attorney will generally continue that out another month or two until a new trial date.
How Long Does the Court Require a Person to Use an Ignition Interlock Device?
The statute in Virginia requires that an ignition interlock be installed in any vehicle that a defendant may drive for a minimum of 6 months, although it can be longer, depending on different criteria used by the court.
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