I am a criminal lawyer and handle my fair share of DUI cases. Most advantages in DUI cases from legal technicalities rather than prosecutors giving a break out of the goodness of their heart. It takes a good lawyer to navigate the facts and the law. Most cases are straight forward enough and are not getting reduced or tossed. The law is very different from state to state.
However, jury's are fairly lenient on DUIs if there is any question mark about the facts of the case and the person has an otherwise clean record.
If a person was caught in their own driveway, and they have a clean record, and they didn't blow very high. That might make a good case to let a jury a hear. Especially if they didn't make any statement to the police about where they were going. Who knows, they may have been moving the car to let somebody out, or to park on the street overnight? Also, what was it out about there driving that gave suspicion of a violation of the law to form the basis of the stop in the first place (Terry stop)?
I just picked up a DUI 2nd case the other day. Carries a mandatory minimum of 10 days jail and license suspension and 3 year OL suspension. However I know I will be able to get it reduced to a 1st with no mandatory minimum jail and 1 year license suspension because the out of state 1st offense is from a state whose DUI statute is dissimilar enough from this state's statute that our supreme court ruled years ago that convictions from that state can't be used to enhance DUI's in this state to a subsequent offense. The average attorney who dabbles in DUIs wouldn't know that, and wouldn't bother to find it out. So getting a good lawyer can make the difference.
Maybe on their 3rd they can kill a family of 4 and you can catch a manslaughter case.....here's hoping!
