A Beverly Hills DUI attorney can help you clear your record with an acquittal, charge reduction, or expungement
You don’t want a DUI conviction following you around for the rest of your life, do you? If you drive as part of your job, you can kiss your career goodbye. And if even if your driving record has no bearing on your chosen career, a criminal conviction in your history can still close many doors to you. Fortunately, a Beverly Hills DUI attorney can help you get a clean criminal record and driving record in several ways.
Beat the Charges
Ideally, your Beverly Hills DUI attorney will be able to keep a DUI from getting on your criminal record in the first place. It might surprise you to learn that the tests used by law enforcement to check for intoxication are not foolproof. In other words, just because you failed a field sobriety test or Breathalyzer test does not necessarily mean you must enter a guilty plea. These tests have limitations and can give false results. Your attorney will investigate the possibility that a test was administered incorrectly, conducted under unfair environmental conditions, completed using improperly calibrated or maintained equipment, or invalidated by a complication from a legal medication or health condition. If any of these apply, your attorney may be able to get the test thrown out to pave the way for a win in court.
Your attorney may also investigate the possibility that some aspect of the DUI stop was done improperly, in which case you may be able to have the charges against you dropped. For example, if you were arrested at a DUI checkpoint that was not properly advertised in advance or administered by top-level law enforcement management, the stop may have been illegal and should not form the basis for a charge against you.
Reduce the Charges
Another way your Beverly Hills DUI attorney can help keep DUIs off your record clean is by seeking a plea deal. Often, DUI charges get plead down to a “wet reckless,” or reckless driving involving alcohol. In more rare cases, you might get offered a “dry reckless” or plain old reckless driving charge. Either way, you will face reduced penalties as compared to a DUI. Unfortunately, many employers and insurance companies treat wet reckless convictions just like DUIs and may deny employment or raise your rates. A wet reckless can also count as a prior DUI if you are convicted of another DUI within the next 10 years.
Get an Expungement
After 10 years, a DUI conviction will automatically fall off of your driving record. However, it will never fall off your criminal record unless you do something about it. A Beverly Hills DUI attorney can help get DUI convictions expunged in many cases, so that they will no longer appear on your criminal record when employers and landlords do background checks on you. Most DUI convictions are eligible for expungement as soon as you complete your probation, or after one year if no probation was ordered.
The one difference between a DUI expungement and expungement of other convictions is that you have to convince the court that expunging your DUI is in the interest of justice. This is why having a Beverly Hills DUI attorney assisting you is so important. Your attorney can help prove that the hardship of having a conviction on your record for the rest of your life is too harsh a punishment for a minor DUI incident.
