The first thing most people do after being caught for a DUI is start to panic. People often believe that a DUI arrest is the end of their life. They believe that getting a DUI charge is going to completely destroy their future, destroy their opportunities. And cause them to lose things like their employment or immigration status. But realistically, there’s a lot that you can do to protect your future and your reputation if you act fast after a DUI arrest. If you’ve been caught with and charged with DUI in British Columbia these steps may help you avoid serious consequences. This blog post is going to outline some of the initial steps that you can take if you’ve been recently caught for DUI, in order to ensure the most minimal damage to your future and to put yourself in the best position for success in challenging a DUI in British Columbia.
One of the first and most important steps that you can take if you’re facing a DUI charge in British Columbia, is to reach out to a lawyer. Even if you don’t end up retaining a lawyer getting legal advice can help you understand the nuances related the charges you’re facing. A lawyer can advise you on the various limitation periods that apply in a DUI case. In some circumstances, there are steps that you have to take after your DUI arrest within a short timeline of only seven days.
There are also requirements that you might have to gather pieces of evidence that may demonstrate your innocence. Even if you don’t retain a lawyer, a lawyer can advise you on the pieces of evidence that you can gather to help demonstrate that you are innocent of the charges.
Step number two, start to gather as much supporting documentation as possible.
One of the most important things you can do is preserve all of the relevant evidence to show that you didn’t do anything wrong if you don’t believe in the reason for your arrest.
This can include things like statements from friends or family members who were with you. It can include your receipts, your transaction history from your bank, or your credit card, and documents like your Uber receipts, and Google timeline showing where you were throughout the day.
All of this information should be gathered into a folder that you either send to your lawyer or you label for your lawyer so that it can’t be obtained by the prosecution and used against you.
Step three, address any underlying issues that lead to you being arrested. For a lot of people when they’re facing a DUI charge, what they’re facing is the worst day of their life. And the reason that they got charged is because they didn’t cope well with some sort of underlying stress or trauma that they were experiencing in their life. Whether it’s a long standing trauma or whether it’s a singular event that led to you getting a DUI charge at the end of the day focusing on identifying what put you in the position of being pulled over and arrested by police and addressing those concerns, is going to help resolve your case with the prosecution. For some people this might mean quitting drinking entirely. For others it may mean attending a treatment program or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or counselling for substance use.
Even if you don’t believe that you have a substance use issue. Attending substance use counselling can still be beneficial in your case because it can show that you’re willing to separate yourself from the underlying issues that led to you getting an alcohol related driving charge in the first place. That is quitting drinking means that there’s a pretty strong guarantee you’re not going to get caught drinking and driving.
For others it might be installing a device like an ignition interlock device in the vehicle or participating in registering in a sober link or sober monitoring program.
Even if you weren’t drinking, you can still get a DUI charge such as a charge for refusing to provide a sample. In many instances those charges happen as a result of somebody responding badly to a request by police. So again, counselling or mental health work can help you develop positive coping strategies to deal with police encounters in the future.
And for a lot of people who end up in these situations they’re dealing with underlying traumas. So addressing those underlying traumas, and repairing your mental health can go a long way in helping a lawyer resolve your DUI case. At the end of the day, everybody can benefit from a little bit of counselling.
Another important step to take after getting a DUI arrest just to make as much detailed notes as possible about everything that you can remember from the moment you woke up that day, to the moment you were released by police. You should record these notes in a document that it is addressed to my lawyer so that they can’t be used against you, and so that they are privileged and confidential. This is one of the benefits of hiring a lawyer to help you with a DUI case. Any discussions you have with your lawyer or any material that you prepare for and give to your lawyer attracts privilege and cannot be used against you or disclosed without your consent and a waiver of that privilege.
Hiring a lawyer can create these types of safeguards that protect you from having various pieces of evidence gathered by the police that might otherwise be available to them if they chose to execute a search warrant. Realistically though, it’s not likely that the police are executing a search warrant after a DUI arrest, although it has happened in serious cases involving injuries or deaths.
Once you’ve hired a lawyer, consult with your lawyer about your various concerns. If you’re concerned that a DUI conviction can impact your employment, a lawyer will be able to advise you on steps that you can take to protect your employment. A lawyer may refer you to an employment lawyer to assist with your employment contract, or to assist with getting advice on how you can protect yourself from termination, such as by doing things like counselling or substance use treatment and to prevent you from being terminated if there is a human rights issue. That led to you getting the DUI in the first place. Similarly, if you’re concerned about your immigration status in Canada, a lawyer can help you by connecting you with immigration resources to prevent you from deportation. A lawyer who is familiar with and experienced in DUI cases will have the understanding of the various ways in which DUI conviction or a 90 day immediate roadside prohibition or an administrative driving prohibition may vary in their impact on employment and immigration consequences. Well, many criminal defense lawyers handle DUI cases. Having somebody with that particular knowledge about this particular area is crucial. Because the more general a lawyer’s criminal law practice, the less likely it is they’re going to know the specialized information that affects you in a DUI case.
The last recommendation that we can give to people facing DUI charges is to take steps to rehabilitate your driving, even if you’re not a bad driver or if you were stopped after doing nothing wrong such as pulling out of the parking lot of a bar or pulling out of a liquor store parking lot or at a roadblock. rehabilitating your driving record by taking defensive driving courses, taking online driving classes, and researching and writing essays about the dangers of impaired driving can all be used as evidence to show that you’ve mitigated any potential risk of any driving incidents in the future. All of the positive steps that you take after your arrest are steps that can be used by your lawyer in discussions with the prosecutor to demonstrate that you are not a continued risk to the public and worthy of having the charges reduced or dropped entirely.
Ultimately, these are just suggestions. And they aren’t specific to any individual case, which is why the number one piece of advice we gave and the number one piece of advice that we can give is to contact a lawyer if you’re facing and impaired driving charge as soon as possible after your impaired driving arrest so that you can get the best advice to keep a DUI from negatively impacting you in the future.