Beaumont DWI Lawyer

Have you been Charged with a DWI in Beaumont? The Attorneys at Grossman Law Offices Can Help

Beaumont is a hard-working, blue-collar town where most people like to have a few beers at the end of the day to wind down. Unfortunately, sometimes even reasonable responsible people have one drink too many, resulting in a frightening traffic stop and an arrest for Driving While Intoxicated (DWI).

Without a doubt, you’re going to need the assistance of a skilled and knowledgeable Beaumont DWI attorney if you have been charged with DWI or some other form of drunken driving offense. That’s the only way you will find a resolution to your case that you can live with. Sure, it’s never been hard to find a lawyer in Beaumont or elsewhere in Texas, but you don’t just want any lawyer you find in the phone book or out on the street. To secure the best possible outcome to your case, you will need the help of a lawyer who not only has experienced handling DWI cases, but also one who is familiar with and well-known within the Jefferson County courts. A drunken driving lawyer with a good reputation in Jefferson County can help your situation go more smoothly by easing interaction with the prosecution. It’s not difficult to find an attorney who will be willing to hold your hand through the trial and take your money while doing nothing more than going through the motions and hoping for leniency. At Grossman Law Offices, we do much, much more than just cash your payment checks. Our Beaumont DWI attorneys will do everything within our legal powers to help each and every one of our clients achieve the best viable resolution to their cases, giving them all the attention, time, and resources they deserve.

As you prepare to hire an attorney to defend against the charges that the state has levied, you must arm yourself with knowledge to fully understand the situation you are in. You likely know that you’re potentially facing prison time, huge fines, and the loss of your driver’s license, but you also need to know that a DWI conviction could damage your reputation and employability for years to come. The Internet age has made it exceedingly easy for employers to learn all about your past with a background check. You need to find a clever and trial-tested Beaumont DWI attorney to help secure an acceptable end to your situation or hopefully an acquittal. For 20 years, our attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have been helping Texans fight DWI charges. During the course of those decades in practice, we have seen virtually every circumstance imaginable when it comes to drunken driving offenses, and we’ve gotten to know the intricacies and policies of the Jefferson County courts. You need to call one of our attorneys now at 1-855-427-0000 (toll free). We offer a free and confidential consultation that will give you a chance to tell your tale, clear up anything you don’t understand, and find out how our attorneys can help you.

After getting to know many other people who’ve gone through what you’re experiencing, we’ve learned that your feelings range anywhere from concern to outright fear and from mild confusion to complete helplessness. We know that the only way to put you at ease is to educate you about the DWI legal process. As a result, we’ve put together this collection of helpful tidbits designed to put you in a position to make an informed decision about the best legal venue for you to take. Only someone armed with knowledge will make the right decisions to secure the best outcome to a DWI trial.

Different Kinds of Criminals

The first thing you need to know about DWI is that the defendants are not like the defendants in other types of crimes who are deliberate criminals focused on harming others. People accused of DWIs are otherwise upstanding citizens who had no intentions of hurting anyone. What people who have committed a DWI have done wrong is drink too much alcohol, impairing their ability to function physically and mentally and resulting in the poor decision to drive after too many drinks. While DWI defendants may be unique, they’re treated just like any other criminal by the court system, threatening prison time, thousands of dollars in fines and the loss of driving privileges (although probation is most often the result of a DWI offense that didn’t involve a wreck). By obtaining the help of a Beaumont DWI attorney with a strong reputation in the Jefferson County courts, you’re giving yourself a leg up to securing the best possible verdict.

Understanding the Ins and Outs of Criminal Law

Before delving into DWI laws specifically, we must first give you some basic background information on the nature of the American legal system. If we cover anything you already know, then we apologize. Hopefully you’re aware that the Constitution provides the basis for the American legal system, with its first 10 amendments the Bill of Rights providing the rights all American citizens have come to take for granted. In order to convict someone of a crime, a jurisdiction must be able to prove the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, every jurisdiction is responsible for respecting the suspect’s rights during the arrest, investigation and trial.

In turn, individual jurisdictions – states, counties, cities, towns, and villages have rights too and are all permitted to create laws maintaining the standards of the community. From one locale to another, the standards of the community and the laws change. The legality of cell phone while driving illustrates this concept perfectly. In the state of Texas, it’s illegal to drive through a school zone while texting. Some cities and towns have carried this law a step further and outlawed all use of cell phones in school zones, others have made it illegal to text while driving anywhere, and in places like New York and New Jersey it’s illegal to use a cell phone while driving anywhere unless the driver has a hands-free device. While everyone is guaranteed the freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights, your I-phone or Blackberry is not constitutionally protected. If someone breaks the cell phone law in the community, then that jurisdiction also has the right to establish the punishment, within reason. If you receive a citation, then you must pay the court-mandated fine or follow the jurisdiction’s procedure for obtaining a court date to plead innocent and fight the ticket.

Major crimes like threatening the president or hijacking a plane are still governed by the federal government and tried in the federal courts which are unencumbered by geographical limitations.

While all courts have the same purpose – to exonerate the innocent and punish the guilty – they all reach this end by different means. While no judge can sit on his front porch and administer justice with a .45 like Roy Bean, every judge has his or her own way of doing things, and every jurisdiction has different procedures and punishments. Thus, if you are being tried in Jefferson County, then you must be represented by a Beaumont DWI lawyer who is imminently familiar with the court procedures. To better grasp this concept, let’s consider the analogy of golf courses. All golf courses have the same purpose – to entertain and make money by allowing golfers to play the sport they love. However, not all golf courses go about this function in the same way. For one thing, they’re all laid out differently with different combinations of par-three, four, and five holes designed by different architects. Each course will have unique challenges and obstacles. Moreover, some golf courses are private clubs, others are semi-private, and many are public courses where anyone can play. Some golf courses have cart girls who bring around snacks and drinks for sale, others have snack shops at the turn, some have upscale restaurants, and others just have a cold case to by a Gatorade. In the end, no matter what the amenities offered, they’re all golf courses. Something very similar can be said of different courts. They all exit to dispense justice, but the ways they do it – the procedures and the punishments – are always slightly different. Among lawyers, they call this a court’s personality. You need a Beaumont DWI attorney who knows the personality of the Jefferson County courts after handling other drunken driving cases there.

As we’ve suggested, the fallout from a DWI conviction is dire. The convicted offender will lose his or her driver’s license along with thousands of dollars in fines and fees, and possibly his or freedom in the way of a prison sentence. While the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to a jury trial, that doesn’t mean taking your case to court is the best way for you to resolve your case. In many instances, the best thing you can do is plea bargain. While it might surprise you, the same thing often goes for the prosecution. In most DWI cases, both sides have something to gain from a plea agreement. Obviously, the defendant has much to lose with a conviction, but the prosecution is also at risk of losing. If a prosecutor loses too many DWI cases, then he or she won’t be a prosecutor very much longer. District attorneys need to appear tough on crime, and they won’t tolerate prosecutors who let DWI offenders off the hook. What makes this so hard on the prosecution is that it depends on the professionalism of the arresting officer to fairly and adequately gather evidence. If the officer botches the evidence or stomps on the defendant’s rights in some way, then the prosecutor pays the consequences with a loss in the courtroom. Moreover, a clever Beaumont DWI lawyer can often win an acquittal by getting the jury to question the accuracy of a breathalyzer or blood test. When we discuss these tests later on in this article, you will understand why. Thus, prosecutors are always looking to arrange a plea agreement so they can chalk up a win without wasting the court’s time and money or risking their reputations.

Types of DWI Cases

Your lawyer won’t know whether or not to take your case to trial or plea bargain until he or she has learned the facts of the case. We won’t know how to proceed with your case until you’ve called to tell us your story. In the mean time, we want you to know more about the different kinds of DWI offenses and the punitive measures that accompany them.

Even if you weren’t born in the United States, if you’re reading this, then you know it’s illegal to drive any car while intoxicated. On the other hand, do you have any idea what that means or why it’s the legal standard for intoxication? When it comes to DWI, intoxication has two definitions: when a driver has lost “normal physical and mental abilities” due to use of drugs and/or alcohol or when he or she has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) over .08 percent. Scientific studies have found that when someone’s blood has more than that amount of alcohol in circulation then that is the point at which physical and mental acuity becomes affected.

Much more debatable and subjective than the concrete BAC method, the first definition of intoxication doesn’t refer to what is normal for all people – just the driver who is suspected of drunken driving. The obvious dilemma this creates is how can the arresting officer differentiate between the driver’s behavior during the traffic stop and what is normal when the two are meeting for the very first time?

This perplexing question explains why officers are pushed so ardently by their law enforcement agencies to secure BAC tests for all subjects. However, that’s not the only reason. A BAC test can allow the state to properly fine a DWI offender. Since someone who is more severely drunk while driving presents a much greater threat to society, he or she is fined much more by the state of Texas. All drivers must pay a three-year annual surcharge to reacquire the right to drive after a DWI license suspension. When the driver’s BAC is over .16 percent, then the surcharge is $2,000 per year, but if the driver’s BAC was between .08-.16 percent the annual surcharge is only $1,000.

Whether or not you failed a BAC test, refused to take one, or never had one administered to you before being arrested for a DWI, our Beaumont DWI lawyers at Grossman Law Offices know how to help you attain the best possible resolution to your case.

How a Beaumont DWI Attorney Can Help You with Your Case

Ignore the old adage, “justice is blind.” In the state of Texas, the court approaches every individual case with eyes open, taking into account the threat to society presented by the criminal, the severity of the crime, and the convict’s previous criminal history. When someone is convicted of a drunken driving offense, the length of the sentence and the size of the fines are determined by previous DWI convictions and whether or not the driver hurt anyone during the offense. However, the court will seek the maximum penalty against a defendant unless a skilled attorney can make it see the defendant is only someone who made a single solitary mistake and poses little threat to others.

For 20 years, our law firm has been helping Texans deal with the stress and uncertainty of fighting DWI charges. Over the years and hundred of cases, we’ve come up with procedures that work. We begin by sitting down with you and listening to your side of the story, and we must emphasize the importance of being honest. Only by comparing your story to the evidence gathered by the police can we devise the right strategy for securing the best outcome possible. Misrepresented facts only lead to disappointed defendants in DWI cases. Next, we will take advantage of the period of discovery to learn about the prosecution’s evidence and its intentions in seeking a sentence. Granted, the prosecution must share this information with all defendants, but our lawyers’ well-respected reputation in the Jefferson Courts will only ease this process. As we said, once we have all of the facts, we can plan a strategy for negotiating a plea bargain or preparing for court. Regardless of the strategy we determine, we keep all of our clients informed of all developments in the case as they happen.

Texas DWI Penalties

Like we’ve already written, the punishment imposed on a convicted DWI defendant is derived both from the drunken driver’s previous history of DWI convictions and from the harm caused by the incident. It should be noted, however, that most DWI convictions are punished with probation and not actual jail time. Here is a list of the various categories of DWI and the corresponding punitive measures:

First-time DWI

A first DWI conviction is classified as a Class B misdemeanor with juries having the option to sentence the defendant to a maximum of 180 days in prison, a fine of $2,000 and a driver’s license suspension between 90 and 365 days. If the person's BAC (blood alcohol concentration) is at or above .15%, the charge is automatically bumped up to a Class A misdemeanor.

Second-time DWI

When someone is convicted if a DWI for the second time, it becomes a Class A with the jury having the option of sentencing the convict to up to one year in jail, a $4,000 fine and a driver’s license suspension of two years.

Third-time DWI

DWI laws are designed to give drunken drivers incentive to change their ways, so a third DWI conviction is a 3rd-degree felony, carrying very harsh consequences – a maximum prison term for 10 years, a maximum fine of $10,000, and loss of driving privileges for two years.

Open Containers

Having an open container holding any kind of alcohol in the car at the time of a DWI only makes matters for the drunken driver, adding a fine of up to $2,000 and six additional prison days to whatever punishment was given for the DWI offense.

Driver’s License Surcharges

Like we already mentioned briefly above, when your license has been revoked for a DWI, then you must pay an annual surcharge for three years to regain and retain your license. For a first offense, this surcharge is $1,000 each year for three years so long as his or her BAC was below .16 percent. If the convicted DWI transgressor was extremely intoxicated – with a BAC above .16 percent – then the price of the surcharge rises to $2,000 annually. Another way the state attempts to encourage drunk drivers to reform is by attacking their wallets. Someone who picks up a second DWI will owe a $1,500 annual surcharge for three years, and the price goes up to $2,000 for a third. What’s more is that if someone picks up multiple DWIs in a three-year period, then he or she must pay overlapping fines. Thus, it’s not unheard of for someone to end up paying $5,000 per year to maintain a driver’s license.

Intoxication Assault

Since the state uses DWI laws to protect the greater good, drunken drivers who harm others in auto accidents face the stiffest penalties if convicted. Some jail time is mandatory and can be as long as 10 years, and the fine can be as high as $10,000 for this 3rd-degree felony.

Intoxication Manslaughter

There is very little argument about which DWI offense causes the greatest harm to society and correspondingly deserves the harshest punishments: intoxication manslaughter. After killing someone in a drunken driving wreck, a person can be sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined $10,000 for this 2nd-degree felony. Alike intoxication assault, some jail time is required.

Community Supervision

When someone has committed intoxication assault, then he or she must spend at least 30 days in jail. For an intoxication manslaughter, the mandatory sentence increases to 120 days in jail. No probation is permissible to someone found guilty of committing intoxication assault with a deadly weapon.

Probation isn’t a picnic, but it is compared to spend time in prison. The court will assign you a probation officer, and you will be expected to comply with a number of court-ordered mandates. The first of these is to pay a monthly fee of $50 and report in person to your probation officer, who will want to confirm that you are complying with the terms of your probation: refraining from drinking, adhering to the law, paying all of your fines and fees on schedule, fulfilling your community service obligations, and attending your alcohol awareness classes in the required period of time. After you’ve met with your probation officer on numerous occasions, he or she may decide to allow you to mail in a probation report instead of appearing in person, but that will be at his or her discretion The probation officer may require you take a urine test to confirm you have not been drinking but probably won’t do so more than two or three times. Someone whose DWI also involved drug use will likely be tested far more often.

While not a concern for first-time offenders, anyone convicted of more than one DWI in a decade will be forced to install in interlock device on the ignition system of his or her car. The driver must blow into this mechanism which must confirm the driver’s sobriety before the car will start. Should the driver be determined to have a measurable BAC, then the car will lockdown and another test is not possible for two hours. Moreover, the failed interlock test will be reported to the person’s probation officer. When two-time convicted drunk drivers reform themselves and successfully start the interlock device on every occasion, it’s still an embarrassing thing to do and a painful reminder of the trouble the person has gotten into.

In only a few rare cases, can a DWI conviction be removed from the driver’s record with an expunction. Most people found guilty of DWI will carry the stigma forever, and even people who can expunge will be unable to remove the offense from his or her driving record, causing high insurance rates for the next decade.

In order to protect your reputation now and for years to come, you need a knowledgeable and experienced Beaumont DWI attorney out for you if you want to achieve the best viable resolution to your case. Over the course of the past 20 years, the attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have tried all types of drunken driving cases both criminal and civil; therefore, we’re ready to tackle any case. Even if the guilt of the driver and the strength of the evidence prevents the possibility of an acquittal, we can still minimize the future fallout by securing am acceptable plea bargain.

Texas DWI & Child Endangerment

All too often, children are put in harm’s way when they are forced to get into a car after the adult driving has been drinking. Therefore, the state of Texas has taken action to protect children who cannot protect themselves against drunken driving adults, creating a separate crime called DWI with a minor in the vehicle. This crime is a state felony, treated like a child endangerment offense. For someone convicted, the punishment is very stiff – jail time as long as two years and a fine as high as $10,000. However, the fallout from such an offense can be far greater for single parents. Such a conviction will usually lead to loss of custody to the ex and possibly even to child protective services. While most police officers will seldom arrest a DWI suspect until he or she has refused or failed a breathalyzer test, this is not the case with DWI with a minor in the vehicle. They will err on the side of caution to protect the children.

In order to keep your family together, you need to hire a Beaumont DWI lawyer who knows hot to get the jury to question the police officer’s judgment or the reliability of the BAC test, as well as, one who has extensive experience in the courts of Jefferson Count. Our attorneys at Grossman Law Offices will do everything within our knowledge and power to help you keep your kids if you’ve been accused of a DWI with a minor in the vehicle offense.

DWI Plea Bargains vs. Going to Court and Other Options

As we explained to you earlier, your honesty with your lawyer is absolutely essential to the success of your case. A clever Beaumont DWI attorney can devise a trial or plea bargain strategy to best fit your circumstances, but only if he or she knows the true details. When our attorneys believe the evidence is weak or the traffic stop violated your rights in some way, them we will want to take our chances at trial and seek a full acquittal. Occasionally, the prosecution even drops the charges or the judge accepts a motion for summary judgment due to lack of evidence.

Don’t start planning that “not guilty” party just yet. Instances such as these are very few and far between. In Texas, most law enforcement agencies have long-established and proven protocols for gathering evidence against drunken drivers, and most police officers follow these guidelines, collecting strong evidence. All officers are trained to position their vehicles to videotape the entire interaction with the DWI suspect. They’re trained to ask certain questions to get an idea if the driver might be inebriated. Progressing forward, the officers are then trained to request that the driver take a field sobriety test. If the driver declines to take this test, then the officer will then ask the subject to submit to a breathalyzer test. If the driver either declines to take the breathalyzer or fails one, then he or she is immediately arrested. There are a number of reasons why breathalyzer tests can be inaccurate. However, a plea agreement is still probably your best option if you have failed one. Convincing a jury of the inaccuracy of a BAC test requires overcoming the jurors’ natural prejudice against drunken drivers. While possible, that’s a feat even the most skilled DWI attorney can only hope to pull off occasionally.

If you opt to try your case instead of arranging a plea bargain and lose, then the prosecution will punish you for wasting the court’s time and money by asking for stiffer penalties and punishments. A plea agreement, on the contrary, increases the chances you’ll be permitted to receive deferred adjudication, less time on probation, and less money to pay in fines.

Blood Alcohol Concentration in Texas DWI Cases

Unfortunately, if you didn’t know that .08 percent was the legal level of intoxication before you got stopped for a DWI, then you know it now. But, did you ever wonder why the federal government imposed this limit on states in the early 1990s by withholding federal funding from those states that refused to relent. BAC refers to the amount of alcohol in the blood stream, and .08 percent is the point at which scientists have determined people’s mental and physical abilities have declined too far to drive. In order to ascertain BAC, Texas law enforcement agencies use one of three methods:

1. The amount of grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath.
2. The amount of grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.
3. The amount of grams of alcohol per 67 milliliters of urine.

Someone who has more than four or five drinks simply isn’t going to be able to keep an accurate account of his or her own BAC. While BAC tests provide a better measuring stick than attempting to calculate alcohol absorption by factoring in weight and the amount of drinks imbibed. However, BAC tests are not entirely reliable either, as each measuring method bases its formulas on the typical body chemistry of the average Joe and Jane. Thus, a person could have an intoxicated BAC using a breathalyzer but slightly below intoxicated BAC when measuring by blood or urine. Moreover, a suspect can be arrested without every taking a BAC; even though, the prosecution will not have a very strong case based solely on a police officer’s conviction that the suspect was drunk.

Breathalyzer Inaccuracies

Time may or may not heal all wounds, but the passage of time definitely calls the validity of BAC testing into question. Generally the delay between the time a driver is pulled over by a police officer and the time he or she is given a BAC test can range between 45-90 minutes. What does that BAC test prove? In order for the driver to be convicted, the prosecution must be able to prove the driver was drunk while driving – not 60 minutes later.

While 45 minutes to an hour and half might not seem like much time, that amount can have a tremendous impact on a driver suspected of DWI. As time passes by, the body is busily trying to work the alcohol out of its system, and the speed at which this is done depend on the driver’s weight, the food he or she ate or didn’t, any drug usage that could compound the effect of the alcohol, the rate at which the alcohol was drunk, and the different kinds of alcohol used. With all of these factors at work, it’s possible for a driver’s BAC to be altered either in his or her favor or against it. Let us give you a couple of examples so you can grasp this concept. One driver quit drinking a couple of hours before driving home from the big game. The driver is pulled over when he or she was only slightly above the legal limit. However, as the hour passes, the driver sweats some of the alcohol out of his or her system and manages to sneak by with BAC of .07 percent once the breathalyzer is finally administered. On the other hand, another driver continues drinking right up until the point when he or she attempted to drive home. When pulled over, this driver was actually just below the legal limit for intoxication. However, by the time the BAC test was administered, the driver had digested the alcohol swimming around in his or her belly, causing the BAC to creep up to .09 percent, leading to an arrest for DWI.

You need to sit down and discuss your case with a knowledgeable and experienced Beaumont drunken driving attorney, so he or she can figure out if your BAC was valid or if the elapsed time called the results into question. If there is reason to suspect the BAC results were not trustworthy, our lawyers at Grossman Law Offices will convince the jury to overlook them or the judge to disallow the evidence altogether.

Texas DWI Testing Procedures

The problem of elapsed time is a great one, because otherwise blood tests would be extremely reliable and would allow for samples to be easily stored and re-tested. However, blood tests cannot be used in the field, and the amount of time that passes before the suspect can be taken back to the police station is often too great for the test to be considered accurate. Breathalyzers, conversely, can be carried into the field and administered roadside, but they’re far less reliable.

Moreover, the breathalyzer that most Texas law enforcement agencies employ only compounds concerns. The Intoxilyzer 5000 measures alcohol in the blood by detecting it on the breath using an infrared light detection system that is interpreted by 30-year-old computer technology. You wouldn’t rely on 30-year technology to balance your budget, but the state uses it to test your blood alcohol level.

Furthermore, the Intoxilyzer 5000 has been known to confuse alcohol with ordinary legal substances like perfume or mouthwash. However, that’s not even the biggest known flaw with this apparatus. The Intoxilyzer 5000 calculates BAC using formulas based upon the standard blood to breath ratio for a normal human being of 2,100/1. However, this ratio has been known to be as high as 3,100/1 for some and as low as 1,100/1 for others. Someone with an abnormally low blood to breath ratio could be tested with an intoxicated BAC when he or she was in fact sober, and somebody with an abnormally high ratio could record a technically sober BAC according to the Intoxilyzer when or she was really intoxicated.

Making these fears of inaccuracies balloon, the maker of the Intoxilyzer 5000 won’t guarantee the machine’s findings, and law enforcement agencies won’t let outside entities test the devices.

Making the state of Texas’ usage of the Intoxilyzer 5000 truly baffling, the machine is capable of being much more accurate. It can store breath samples until the full-proof gas chromatography test can be conducted later on. However, the Texas Department of Public Safety neither requires police to keep breath samples or perform the gas chromatography test. While this move would invariably lead to more accurate test results, it would also likely lead to a higher acquittal rate.

What we’re trying to make you see is that your case is not hopeless just because you’ve been arrested after failing a BAC test. At Grossman Law Offices, we may still be able to get the jury to reject the breathalyzer test’s findings.

Your Rights in a DWI Case

Once you see the flashing lights in your rear-view mirror when you’ve had something to drink, the most important things to remember are: stay calm and be respectful. Losing your cool will only increase the police officer’s incentive to cuff you and take you into the station. The officer will ask you questions and may request that you submit to roadside sobriety tests. Since one of the standards of intoxication for DWIs is whether or not the person has lost “normal” physical and mental abilities, you can refuse a field sobriety test if you fell you cannot pass it under normal circumstances. If you have had two torn anterior cruciate ligaments, then standing on one foot, either foot, while reciting the alphabet backwards will be difficult. Thus, you’d be well within your rights to refuse.

On the contrary, the police officer is also well within his or her rights to ask you to take some other form of roadside sobriety test. Drivers who refuse multiple field sobriety tests a) look guilty on the video and b) are usually asked to move right on to the breathalyzer test. Since the accuracy of breathalyzers is debatable, then the driver has the right to refuse to take a breathalyzer just like a field sobriety test, but this comes with a far more serious pair of consequences. Not only is the driver arrested, but his or her driver’s license will be suspended. At the police station, the suspect will be given the chance to take the more reliable blood test, but by then who knows how much time would have elapsed. The office will also likely attempt to secure a search warrant to take your blood without your consent, but this isn’t always practical since most DWIs happen late at night when most judges are sleeping.

However, this is not always the case in certain jurisdictions on certain holidays when more people are known to become intoxicated. Thus, on New Year’s Eve, July Fourth, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, many judges declare a state of emergency and authorize police officers to extract blood for testing without the consent of the driver. The law enforcement officer literally just fills in the blanks, and then gets the needle. Especially if you’ve been using illegal drugs, this is an important rule to know since a blood test will confirm drug usage, whereas, a breathalyzer will not.

If you failed a blood test or refused any kind of BAC test, your best chances of securing the most favorable outcome to your case lies with a skilled and seasoned Beaumont DWI attorney. At Grossman Law Offices, our Beaumont drunken driving lawyers will make sure the jury views on the evidence on its actual merits and sees any flaws.

More on Texas Intoxication Assault and Manslaughter Charges

When trying to secure a not guilty verdict in an intoxication manslaughter or intoxication assault case, a defendant will be battling uphill because most people have very low views of these two crimes. The prosecution has he additional advantages of a mandatory blood test, regardless of consent, when someone is suspected of these crimes and a need only to prove the driver was intoxicated and the injury or death occurred. No malice must be proven. On the other hand, the consequences are extreme for convictions on either offense -- $10,000 maximum fines and up to 10 years in prison with 30 days guaranteed for intoxication assault and 20 years with 120 days guaranteed for intoxication manslaughter.

In almost every form of law, the saying “anyone who represents himself in court has a fool for a client,” holds true, but it’s even more applicable to an intoxication manslaughter where the defendant faces a possible 20 years in prison and a permanent stain on his or her reputation. If you’ve been accused of either of these offenses, you will need the help of a clever and seasoned Beaumont DWI lawyer.

Underage DWI & DUI Criminal Attorney

When it comes to most facets of law, teenagers become adults at 18. However, they cannot legally drink alcohol until they are 21, so when it comes to DWI laws, anyone under 21 is a minor. For such minors, the drunken driving laws are different. Considering the fact that minors can’t drink at all, then they cannot legally drive with ANY alcohol in their systems. Anyone doing so can be charges with Driving Under the Influence (DUI). Only an experienced and trustworthy Beaumont DWI lawyer can help you if you or your teenage son or daughter received a DUI.

Though they don’t have the same drinking privileges as adults, minors do retain the same rights when stopped under suspicion of a DUI as adults who are questioned about a DWI. If they refuse to take field sobriety tests, they will be asked to take breathalyzers. If they decline the breathalyzers, then they will be arrested. Moreover, a refused breathalyzer will result in a suspended license – 120 days for a first DUI offense and 240 days for a repeat offender. Remember, driving a car is only a privilege, and the state has the right to revoke that privilege. On the other hand, if you have never received a DUI, then it’s actually in your best interest to take a breathalyzer, since failing it only results in a 60-day driver’s license suspension. Moreover, minors can’t wait to take a blood test and hope their BAC will drop to an acceptable limit. For a DUI, the acceptable limit is 0.0 percent, and that’ going to take a lot longer than 90 minutes. Repeat DUI offenders, on the other hand, may be better off refusing a breathalyzer, since a failed BAC test for a second DUI conviction can lead to a maximum driver’s license suspension of one year.

If a minor is determined to be an alcoholic or a drug addict, the court has the additional abilities to send the minor to rehab or revoke his or her driver’s license until he or she reaches the legal drinking age.

When minors drive with a BAC over .08 percent, they can also be charged with DWI, just the same as if they were adults. When the minor is older than 17, he or she will be treated like an adult from a legal perspective and is subject to 180 days in prison and fines of $2,000 if convicted. A DWI for a minor beneath the age of 17 could result in juvenile detention.

First-time DUI

The punishment for a first-time DUI is miniscule compared to a DWI, but it’s still a Class C misdemeanor. Punishment includes no jail time, by minors will still need to be accompanied by their parents to court and will be sentenced to 20-40 hours of community service and 15 hours of alcohol and DWI awareness classes if convicted. The court can also order that the minors’ parents accompany him or her to the alcohol awareness classes. A first-time DUI does offer one “advantage” over all other drunken driving crimes – the conviction can be expunged from the minor’s record so long as he or she successfully completes a deferred adjudication program and then turns 21-years-old.

Second-time DUI

As far as punishment goes, there is little difference between a first-time DUI and a second. The driver’s license suspension is much longer, and so are the community service hours – 60 instead of 20-40. The major variation with a second DUI is that the crime can no longer be expunged even though the convicted minor is still eligible for deferred adjudication.

Third-time DUI

A third DUI conviction is no longer just a slap on the wrist. It cannot be deferred adjudicated because it’s a Class B misdemeanor. Moreover, if the minor is over 17 years-old, then a conviction is punishable with a maximum jail sentence of 180 days and a fine ranging from $500--$2,000.

Obviously, you or your teenager has done something foolish, or you wouldn’t be sitting in front of your computer learning about DUI right now. You need to hire an experienced Beaumont DWI attorney to help you, you’re only adding to the foolishness. It takes someone who has spent significant time trying DWI cases in the courts of Jefferson County to master the laws and the local procedures and practices.

ALR Hearing After a DWI

After someone declines to take a breathalyzer, his or her driver’s license will be confiscated by the police officer and immediately suspended. However, we didn’t mention earlier that as the driver waits for his or her day in court, the police officer will then issue a 40-day provisional license to the driver.

After receiving official notice of the driver’s license suspension from the officer or the DPS, the driver has 15 days to request an Administrative License Revocation Hearing (or an ALR hearing), at which the driver’s attorney can debate the validity of the license suspension.

While only issued officially for 40 days, the provisional license will remain valid until such a time as the ALR hearing can be scheduled. Upon prevailing with an ALR hearing, the driver’s license suspension is immediately ended the license returned. Should the driver lose the ALR hearing, as is usually the case, then he or she has 30 days to appeal. Once an appeal as been filed, the temporary license is extended for 90 days. If you are acquitted at trial, then your driver’s license suspension is also ended.

Just because you’ve had your driver’s license confiscated and revoked due to a refusal to take a breathalyzer test, that doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your license. At Grossman Law Offices, our savvy Beaumont DWI lawyers can help you.

Occupational Driver's Licenses

Okay, but what if you lose your ALR Hearing. Then what? Don’t worry – we may still be able to put you back in the driver’s seat. The state of Texas isn’t heartless and realizes that even people convicted of DWIs need to get to work or school and provide for the children and families. Moreover, public transportation Thus, DWI convicts are permitted to apply for Occupational Driver’s Licenses (ODLs). However, while an ODL does allow driving, it also restricts driving privileges. The driver can only travel to approved locations and must document all details of every journey in a trip log. All of the details means all of the details: the date, intended destination, time departed, time returned, and total miles driven.

On top of the annoyance of keeping a trip log, the request for an ODL is difficult to prepare, and it will cost nearly a thousand dollars to obtain. The DWI convict must fill out the application properly, preparing a legal brief that includes information about the crime committed, all of the counties the driver will need to drive to, and the reasons the person will need to go there. If the application is not prepared correctly, then the driver risks that the judge will not permit an ODL. The only way to be certain that you will be granted an ODL is to hire a Beaumont DWI lawyer with experience handling these matters.

Differences Between Public Intoxication and DWI

Don’t make the mistake of confusing DWI with public intoxication (PI), for the two infractions differ vastly. In fact, intoxication is defined differently for each offense. As you already know, intoxication during a DWI is defined as when the driver has lost “normal mental or physical abilities” or reached a BAC of .08 percent or higher. People are considered intoxicated in terms of public intoxication, on the contrary, when they are determined to have become a danger to others or themselves.

As we discussed earlier, law enforcements officers have rigid procedures for stopping suspects and collecting evidence when it comes to DWI. However, there are no such guidelines for dealing with PI. All that needs to happen for someone to be arrested for public intoxication is an officer has to believe that a person is too intoxicated to safely be left alone.

The point of law is to protect the public. For obvious reasons, a drunk who has fallen asleep on his or her bar stool is far less of a threat both to him or herself and the world around him than an intoxicated person who gets back in his or her Hummer and then rolls onto the highway going 85 mph and swerving from lane to lane. Thus, the punishment for P.I. is much more lenient than any drunken driving violation. PI carries no prison time, and it’s only categorized as a Class C misdemeanor, with only a $500 fine. Unless you feel the charges aren’t just and would like to contest a PI citation, you won’t need an attorney. You just need to appear at court and pay the fine. When it comes to any other type of drunken driving violation, you need a skilled Beaumont DWI attorney in your corner if you’ve been charged.

Your Rights When Suspected of a DWI

Of course, you have rights when charged with DWI; just don’t assume driving is one of them. You can refuse to take the tests the police officer asks you to do, but this will only lead to your license being suspended. Before this law was enacted, anyone suspected of drunken driving just refused the breathalyzer test and denied the state the ability to gather evidence. In the scales of justice, the state of Texas has decided the need to stop drunken drivers outweigh the problems with BAC tests. When a driver refuses to take a BAC test, it can be used as evidence against him or her in court. However, not only can an able Beaumont DWI attorney often convince a jury that a breathalyzer test was inaccurate or improperly taken, but the driver’s license is a relatively short 90 days for failing a BAC test.

Whether you decide to take or refuse a breathalyzer test, you need to keep in mind that the video surveillance system in the police car is watching and recording everything you do. If you appear drunk, then you’re providing evidence to the state, even if you refuse the breathalyzer test.

When you’re sitting on the side of the road nervously eying the police officer in the rear-view mirror, you don’t have the right to call your attorney and ask for advice. Despite what you’ve been taught by years of cop shows and movies, you only have the right to an attorney when being interrogated for a crime. Standard traffic stops don’t fall into that category. Although, you do retain the “right to remain silent” and can refuse to answer any and all of the police officer’s questions. However, you should know that this will only anger the arresting officer and give him or her more incentive to find a way to convict you of DWI.

Grossman Law Offices Can Help

For 20 years, the Beaumont DWI attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have been finding ways to help people in trouble. Over the course of those two decades, our Beaumont drunken driving lawyers have spent thousands of hours in court trying to assist hundreds of Texans accused of DWI. Over that time, we’ve developed mastery of DWI laws and intimate familiarity with the nuances of the Jefferson County courts. It would be foolhardy and unethical for any lawyer to tell you that he or she can definitely get you off the hook for a DWI offense.

On the other hand, we can assure you that we will give your case the attention it deserves. Whereas other lawyers will just take your money, we will give you the benefit of our immense knowledge and resources. Once we have determined the best resolution your case can yield, we will do whatever we can to help you achieve it. We can help all types of people accused of drunken driving offenses – teenagers who got pulled over after drinking one beer, parents who had a couple too many drinks at dinner and got pulled over with the kids in the backseat, a person who refused to take a breathalyzer test, or someone who caused a drunken driving accident that left the other driver paralyzed. No matter who you are or what kind of DWI trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, call us now for a free and confidential consultation at 1-855-427-0000 (toll free). After you have told us your tale and asked any lingering questions you have, we will explain your legal options, clarify the aspects of the law you don’t understand, and explain how we can help you find the best viable outcome.