Virginia DUI Refusal Lawyers

Virginia DUI Refusal Lawyers

If you have been charged with a DUI and you did not take a blood alcohol test, you might be scared about the consequences that come with this and how you should handle this charge. Our Virginia DUI refusal lawyers are here to help you through this all and get your charges reduced or dismissed. Call us today to get started.

NovaLegalGroup, P.C. also helps residents of Virginia with Legal Matters in: Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Burke, Centreville, Fairfax, Mclean, Oakton, Reston and Springfield.

Understanding DUI Charges

When you are charged with a DUI, that means that you were found by the officer to have been driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This criminal offense in Virginia is a harshly penalized offense.

You need to understand why an officer might pull you over to charge you with a DUI so you can better understand how you can question these motives later on in your case. Here are the top reasons why an officer might charge you with DUI:

• They found your blood alcohol content to be higher than the legal limit while driving
• They believed that you were drunk or under the influence of drugs while driving
• They believed you were both drunk and under the influence of drugs while driving

Cases can be based on two pieces of evidence. The first piece of evidence could be the scientific side of things in which they test for your blood alcohol content level. Of course, if you are here reading this page it likely means that you refused to take a test and they won’t have this scientific evidence to charge you. (The legal limit of blood alcohol content is .08%.)

If you refuse to take a breath test, then you likely were arrested because of the assumption that you were drunk or under the influence of drugs. The only thing that they need to arrest you for suspicion is if the officer has reason to believe that you were under the influence. That could be in the way that you were driving or the way that you behaved when they pulled you over.

These are identical charges, whether it was science-based or based on your behavior and their suspicion; however, with a refusal to take a breath test to determine what your BAC is, you are going to be facing some additional consequences if you are to be convicted for this charge. Our Virginia DUI refusal lawyers are here to help you through this case to get you a less harsh result.

What if I Refuse My Breath Test?

If you were arrested based on the suspicion that you had alcohol or illegal drugs in your system and then you refused to give the arresting officer a breath test with their breathalyzer and refused to take a blood test at a hospital, then you are going to be facing additional penalties. These are often serious penalties especially if you were under the suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs or controlled substances, such as prescription medication. When you get pulled over, it’s often worse if you don’t take the test because you then have to deal with additional penalties if you are charged.

It is important to understand that if you were someone who was pulled over and charged by an officer with DUI after refusing a breath test that doesn’t mean our Virginia DUI refusal lawyers can’t help.  Hope is not lost for you. We will investigate the arrest and the entire interaction with the officer to see if they did everything right. If there are discrepancies in the way the officer handled themselves, we are going to use what we can to defend you to get you options to reduce or dismiss your charges and help you.

There are procedures and rules that officers must follow and, if they are not up-to-date on these when they stop you for a DUI, then we can review the arrest information to see what we can do for you. Your rights could’ve been violated in the interaction and if that is the case, then we can create a defense based on that. There is still a chance that your breath test or blood test refusal offense can be thrown out of court or dismissed.

It is the job of our Virginia DUI refusal lawyers to know the updated laws regarding arrests for these cases and the use of breath tests. If we can determine that there was an issue with the interaction you had with the arresting officer, then we might be able to build a strong case against this charge. Even the most challenging of cases have a chance of reducing or dropping the charges. It is our job to explore all avenues to success and provide you with the best possible result in the end.

Virginia DUI Refusal Lawyers Can Fight the Charges

It is important to us that you feel supported through this entire process. We know that this can be a very scary time and we want to be able to help you feel hopeful in a time where you might be feeling helpless.

As you well know by now, when you get arrested for driving under the influence, the officer can ask you to take a roadside sobriety test, which includes a breath test to check your blood alcohol content. From there, they will check to see whether or not the blood alcohol content level is above .08%. If you have refused to give them this test, your case will work differently. You won’t always get a chance to reach out to a lawyer before you are asked to take a roadside breath test unless they’ve already arrested you or charged you with driving under the influence. It is, however, a right of yours to talk to a lawyer if you’ve been arrested, taken to the station, and then asked to perform more accurate tests for your blood alcohol content. You have a right to speak to our Virginia DUI refusal lawyers if you’ve been asked to give blood at a hospital for another test before you have given consent to this test.

In some cases, an officer is going to make a stop of a driver because they have reason to believe that person is operating their vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol. It might be in the way that the person is driving or it might be some errors that they are making on the road but, once they pull this person over under the suspicion of driving under the influence, they can ask this person to take a alcohol and drug test either at the station or the local hospital. After this has taken place, there will be another officer who does special tests (both physical and observational) on the driver to see if there is reason to perform further testing. If they believe that this person is under the influence, they can then ask the driver to give a sample either of their breath, their urine, or their blood to test for their levels.

If this situation sounds like yours and you refused to give them these tests, you do have a right to do so. If someone were in that situation and they had chosen not to give samples for these tests, they would likely be charged with a DUI refusal.

It will be up to the court to decide whether or not you had a reasonable excuse to refuse to take any of the tests you were asked to give to the officers. That is why it’s very important to have knowledgeable lawyers by your side as this is a difficult case to win. Someone who has handled these types of cases often, however, will know what it takes to make it work.

If you are up against serious charges for a refusal to take a test after being pulled over for the suspicion of driving under the influence, whether you have been convicted with a DUI before or not, we strongly suggest that you reach out to our Virginia lawyers before you give any sort of test for arresting officers. If you have already been through the arrest process and you are looking for strong representation for your case, please give us a call as soon as you can. We want to help you through this.

Call Our Virginia DUI Refusal Lawyers Today 

Please call us today if you are facing charges for refusing to take the BAC test. You deserve to have strong representation and we have the experience needed to get you the results you desire. We want to give you support and guidance through this process, so please call our Virginia DUI refusal lawyers as soon as you possibly can.