A driving while intoxicated (DWI) charge dismissal means that the prosecutors drop your DWI charge against you, leading to no conviction on your criminal record. It is different from a plea bargain and acquittal. The prosecutor can dismiss your DWI at any phase of the criminal judicial process. You are more likely to get the DWI dismissed if you are a first-time defendant with a blood alcohol concentration that is close to the legal limit, you did not cause any injuries or accidents, and you cooperated with law enforcement. This blog explores various strategies for defending against a DWI charge and potentially having it dismissed.

The Police Did Not Read You Your Miranda Warning

If you have watched any crime show, you might be familiar with the refrain of the Miranda warning. You have a right to remain silent. Law enforcers can use whatever you tell them as evidence against you in court. You are entitled to legal representation. If you cannot hire a lawyer, the court will provide you with a public defender.

Miranda warnings are a preventive measure in criminal procedure that ensures the defendant is aware of their rights.

Whether a police officer should read you the Miranda rights depends on whether you are in custody or not. The police should only read you the warning when interrogating you while you are in their custody.

Custody for Miranda warning purposes goes beyond formal arrest. The courts hold that the test is whether a prudent individual would think the police have deprived them of the freedom to move freely or leave.

Per Texas law, custody might also include the following situations:

  • Police have reasonable doubt to arrest you, but deliberately delay your arrest so as not to trigger a Miranda warning.
  • The police are questioning you within a police-controlled environment, like during an extended accusatory interview.
  • The setting, duration, and tone of the police encounter could cause a reasonable individual to perceive that they are detained.

Custody can occur even before your formal arrest, and the court considers the entirety of your case's circumstances to decide whether you were in custody.

Interrogation entails a direct interview, and any conduct or words the police use are likely to prompt incriminating responses. It includes the following:

  • Inquiring about your DWI case facts
  • Presenting proof to provoke reactions
  • Undertaking emotionally manipulative actions to acquire a statement

Nevertheless, basic questions during the booking process are not deemed interrogation.

Article 38.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure also regulates the admissibility of custodial statements and adds procedural requirements beyond Miranda, including the following:

  • Electronic recording requirement
  • The statements should be voluntary, and the prosecutor has the burden of proof.
  • A police officer should issue a recorded or written warning that complies with the Miranda warning before the recorded or written statement can be admissible.
  • The defendant should voluntarily and knowingly waive their Miranda warnings. If your waiver is invalid, the court could exclude their statement from evidence.

If you are subject to custodial interrogation and law enforcement fails to read the Miranda warning, the court could suppress your statement, and the prosecutor cannot utilize it against you in a trial. Additionally, the evidence acquired from your statements could be inadmissible.

Please note that judges do not automatically dismiss the case.

Issues with the Handling of the Test Samples

Breath and blood test samples should be collected, stored, handled, and transported accurately to ensure reliable BAC results. If a breach in the chain of custody occurs, the court may exclude the samples as evidence, potentially resulting in a dismissal. Your skilled attorney should review the chain of custody to determine whether the tracking and recording of chemical test samples from their collection to presentation in court were accurate.

Examples of chain of custody issues might involve the following:

  • Uncertainty about when police officers administered the chemical test
  • Missing details about who had the chemical test sample and when
  • Inadequate organization and labeling of the chemical test sample
  • The likelihood of the sample being mixed up with other samples
  • Improper storage or handling of the sample
  • Inaccurate identification of the individual who administered the sample

Illegal Search and Seizure in a DWI Case

Before a DWI arrest, the officers must have a reasonable suspicion that you committed a violation.  Before searching you, the police should have consent (however, they can search your car without a warrant if they think it is paramount to ensure safety and prevent a dangerous event from occurring). Failure to satisfy the requirements is a violation of the law. Consequently, the prosecution team’s DWI charge against you may result in a dismissal.

What is the Exclusionary Rule?

Proof obtained in breach of your constitutional rights should not be used against you in a criminal proceeding, including any proof derived from an illegal search or seizure. In other words, if the police used an unlawful legal act to obtain specific evidence, the court should exclude the proof obtained.

Nevertheless, the prosecution team does not just admit to a violation of your constitutional rights. It may argue that it upheld your rights and collected evidence lawfully during your arrest and investigation. Therefore, your attorney will fight aggressively to persuade the court to dismiss any tainted proof during the DWI case.

If the court dismisses the evidence, the prosecution team is left without proof to support its case and may be forced to reconsider the DWI charge filed against you. Sometimes, it ca offer you a plea deal or drop the DWI charge entirely.

You Can Argue that Medical Conditions Resulted in a Wrongful DWI Arrest and BAC Results

Before arresting you for DWI, the police depend on observations of confusion, watery eyes, alcoholic odor, changes in gait, and slurred speech. Police use the observations to determine whether the motorist satisfies the definition of intoxication as failure to have normal use of physical or mental abilities due to drugs or alcohol.

However, these signs could be due to health conditions that include the following:

  • Neurological disorders — Disorders like epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, sclerosis, and prior brain damage can impair coordination, balance and speech. These signs often make you fail field sobriety tests, even when you are sober. If an arresting officer lacks medical training to distinguish between the two, they may draw an incorrect conclusion.
  • Diabetes or ketoacidosis — Individuals with diabetes, particularly those suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) or low blood sugar, can have symptoms, like confusion, incoherent speech and fruity-smelling breath, signs that may be mistaken for intoxication. Sometimes, an individual with DKA could aso appear disoriented or have standing challenges.
  • Panic attack and anxiety — A person suffering anxiety coud exhibit shaking, sweating, fast speech or erratic conduct. Being pulled over by law enforcement can sometimes make your heart start racing, affecting your FSTs performance. Panic attacks and anxiety may result in dizziness or hyperventilation, which the police may misinterpret as an indication of impairment.
  • Sleep deprivation and fatigue — Chronic exhaustion can cause your speech to be slurred, delay responses, and lead to confusion. If you are tired, it could cause you to perform dismally on the field sobriety tests, which can also be attributed to low focus levels, but not intoxication. 
  • Inner ear conditions —These conditions include vertigo or Meniere’s disease. They can affect your balance and may cause a sober individual to sway, stumble or fall when the police are administering FSTs, resulting in an unjustified DWI arrest.

How These Health Issues Affect FSTs

FSTs are standardized, but they can sometimes return errors. Even relevant agencies acknowledge that FSTs may lack accuracy when medical conditions are present. Police officers should ask whether you have any medical issues before initiating the tests, but some do not.

If this happened in your DUI charge, your lawyer can argue that those results should receive minimal or no evidentiary weight.

Impact of Medical Conditions on Chemical Test Results

Other medical issues can also affect the accuracy of chemical tests are as follows:

  • Mouth alcohol—Dental work, like dentures or alcohol-based mouthwash, may impact the breath test results.
  • Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) — GERD involves alcohol from your stomach rising into your mouth, resulting in falsely increased breath test results.
  • Ketosis — Intermittent fasting and keto diets can generate acetone, which some breathayzers could interpret as ethanol.

Additionally, if the blood samples are not stored well, they could ferment and artificially increase your blood alcohol content level.

How Your Attorney Can Use Medical Evidence to Challenge the DWI Charge

In driving while intoxicated cases, medical conditions do not automatically lead to a dismissal of your charges, but if effectively presented, your lawyer can establish a lack of probable cause or reduce the reliability of the prosecution team’s evidence against you.

Your attorney can utilize medical defenses by doing the following:

  • Contest the FSTs, that they did not account for a medical health issue.
  • File motions for the suppression of unreliable test results or procedures
  • Cross-examine the arresting officers to identify bias or flawed observations
  • Evaluate and submit your medical documents to demonstrate a pre-existing condition
  • Hire professional experts to explain and review the symptoms or test results.
  • Look for discrepancies in how the police conducted the tests, like variations in instructions. 

Under certain circumstances, raising a legitimate health issue in the initial stages of the DWI case may convince the prosecution team to dismiss or reduce the charges.

Mouth Alcohol Contamination

Breathalyzers measure deep lung air, not alcohol in your mouth. If you vomit, burp or use a mouthwash close to your testing, the residual alcohol lingering in the mouth may influence a high BAC reading. The residual alcohol may linger for some minutes and substantially distort the test results.

An arresting officer is required to observe a suspect for 15 minutes before conducting breath tests to ensure there is no mouth alcohol present. Strict adherence to this observation time is essential for maintaining the test’s integrity. Otherwise, it could lead to case dismissal.

Rising BAC Levels 

 

After you drink alcohol, your body does not immediately absorb it into your bloodstream. Instead, the alcohol first passes through your intestines before the body absorbs it into your bloodstream; the procedure could take at least 30 minutes. In the absorption stage, your blood alcohol content keeps rising, even after you have stopped drinking. If the police stop you shortly after drinking alcohol on a DWI suspicion, your BAC could be rising even though you have stopped driving.

In Texas, the police should administer a blood or breath test within a short interval after making the traffic stop. For a driver with a rising BAC, a delay could mean a difference between a test showing a BAC below or above the legal limit.

Your criminal defense lawyer can analyze every minute of delay from when the police stopped you to when they administered the chemical test. That way, they will develop a report that reviews the arresting police officer's report, provides a timeline of events, and assesses the accuracy of all chemical tests administered.

Your lawyer can also engage a toxicologist who can explain how the body absorbs and metabolizes alcohol, supporting your argument that the BAC level was lower when driving than at the time of the chemical testing.

Please note that rising BAC is not a gap in every DWI case; it is only applicable under particular circumstances. It is not a guarantee that the court will dismiss your case. Instead, the defense is effective when there exists clear proof that the BAC results do not accurately reflect the BAC at the time of your driving.

Additionally, this defense does not dispute that you drank alcohol. Instead, it argues that the BAC rose after you stopped driving. For the defense to be valid, you must prove that the rising BAC impacted the test's accuracy.  You should approach this defense with credible evidence and realistic expectations.  

Illegal Traffic Stop

An arresting officer should have probable cause before stopping your vehicle.  Probable cause exists when a rational individual under similar circumstances would believe that the person is committing a crime. Factors that are likely to support a finding of probable cause include the following:

  • Speeding
  • Failing to maintain your lane
  • Driving against traffic
  • Operating your car below the speed limit
  • Running  a stop sign or red light
  • Narrowly escaping a road accident
  • Making illegal turns
  • Braking frequently

The law bars the state from benefiting from breaches of your legal rights, and the exclusionary rule applies to evidence acquired through illegal state conduct. Any proof illegally acquired can be excluded from your DWI criminal case. Your lawyer can file a motion to suppress the evidence.

The prosecution has the burden of establishing your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If probable cause does not support your traffic stop, the prosecutor will have challenges meeting the burden of proof.  In this case, the prosecutor will dismiss your criminal charges. 

You Were Not Driving

The court could dismiss your DWI charge if the prosecution team cannot prove that you were driving a car. Driving requires the intent to move the car.  If you were not in a moving car and were merely inside for air conditioning or were listening to music, you can argue that you did not intend to move the automobile. 

The Police Did Not Abide By Breath Test Device Regulations

For the prosecutor to base your DWI criminal charge on a portable breath test device, the law requires the law officers administering the chemical test to do things correctly. Since breath test gadgets can be unreliable, the law imposes strict requirements on their use for prosecution. They require the police to do the following:

  • Abide by specific testing guidelines overseen and administered by the Texas Department of Public Safety's Breath Alcohol Laboratory.
  • Acquire certification from the Department of Public Safety for breath testing.
  • Certify and calibrate breath testing equipment to the standardized field sobriety test standards established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
  • Certify every breathalyzer operator to administer the breath test after training them to particular standards for using specific breathalyzers.
  • Document the calibration and maintenance of the breathalyzer and produce the relevant documentation on request.
  • Offer you an official warning form that the law requires before administering the chemical test.
  • Acquire your signature on the warning after the police explain the chemical test procedure.
  • Conduct two tests to prove the variance between your results

If the judge finds that the police followed these requirements, the court will consider the BAC results in its deliberations. On the other hand, if the police failed to adhere to any of these requirements, the court will not consider the BAC results for any purpose and could dismiss your DWI charges.   

Find a Tenacious DWI Defense Lawyer Near Me

If charged with DWI, you might feel overwhelmed and afraid of how your future will unfold. While the charge is severe and comes with life-altering consequences, there are situations where the court can dismiss the charges if you use the right defense strategy. Obtaining this favorable case outcome requires caution, attention to detail, and experienced legal assistance.

Once you hire Fort Worth DWI Defense Lawyer, the first step we take is obtaining a record of your arrest that includes dashcam recordings, chemical test details, and police reports. We can also analyze the chemical test and field sobriety test administration to check for inconsistencies and other factors that could have impacted your performance. We can work tirelessly and leave no stone unturned to develop a valid legal strategy that focuses on your constitutional rights and increases the chance of having the charges dismissed. Please call us at 817-470-2128 to schedule your free case review.