A New Client’s Guide for Navigating the DUI Process
If you have recently been charged with a DUI in Rockford or one of its surrounding communities, you probably have a lot of questions. The good news is there is someone here in the community that you can count on–call Attorney Joshua C. Smith today! The first thing that you are likely to wonder about is “what will happen to my driver’s license?” If the officer who arrested you served you with a paper called the “Notice of Summary Suspension” (a.k.a. “Law Enforcement Sworn Report”), this is the document that the State of Illinois will be using to try to take away your driving privileges. As that document indicates, the license suspension will be scheduled to take effect 46 days following your arrest. However, the law allows you an opportunity, through your attorney, to challenge this suspension and ask the court to stop it by filing a petition to rescind the suspension. There is only a limited window of time within which to file this petition, so you must act promptly. I have handled hundreds of DUI cases and, in many of them, succeeded in having suspensions removed from my clients’ driving records. The bases for removal can be complex and are beyond the scope of this post. But here are a few examples:
(1) The officer may have lacked a valid basis for stopping your vehicle
(2) The officer may have had insufficient reason to believe that you were impaired by alcohol or another substance while operating a vehicle on a public roadway
(3) The officer may have failed to properly advise you of the consequences of taking or declining a chemical test
(4) The officer may have failed to properly serve you with the notice of suspension or his sworn report may have been legally defective
(5) You may not have, in fact, refused to submit to chemical testing or the chemical tests to which you submitted may have been unreliable in some way
Suffice it to say I am very well versed in the law in this area and can put my knowledge to work for you.