Posted on October 17, 2010 in DUI Case
If your DUI lawyer is worth their weight in salt, one of the first things that they are going to do in your DUI case is request an MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) hearing.
The official scope of an MVD hearing in Arizona is to determine whether the evidence supports a finding that:
– A law enforcement officer had reasonable grounds to believe that you violated A.R.S. §28-1381, §28-1382, §28-1383 or §4-244(33) (DUI statutes)
– You were placed under arrest
– A test indicated an alcohol concentration of .08 or more (or .04 or more in a commercial vehicle) at thetime the blood alcohol level test was administered
– The testing method was valid and reliable
– The results were accurately evaluated
The law enforcement officer(s) involved must appear and give testimony on these issues, and bring the breath test results or blood alcohol level lab reports/results. Basically it boils down to whether or not the officer was reasonable in pulling you over and arresting you, and whether the police used reasonable methods in determining intoxication.
Interestingly, very often it is advantageous for a defendant to lose their MVD hearing. Check with your DUI lawyer to see if that is your best option. More importantly, however, is how a DUI attorney approaches the MVD hearing.
Due to the fact that an MVD hearing is a civil hearing, there is no prosecutor present to whisper advice to the officer beforehand. This gives an experienced DUI attorney a refreshingly honest look into the events in question. The MVD hearing also takes place months before an officer would testify at trial and it is done under oath. The cumulative effect ofthis hearing is that an awful lot of information, not otherwise known, is disclosed, allowing you and your DUI defense attorney to uncover more information.
Why wouldn’t an attorney planning to go to trial lock in an officer under oath with impeccable prior testimony? MVD hearings are fertile grounds for gathering large amounts of information that very well could lead to the one fact needed to win your case.
It is a policy of Rosenstein Law Group, PLLC to utilize MVD hearings and exercise our clients’ constitutional rights to due process to gather as much information as humanly possible about their DUI cases. It could mean the difference between winning and losing your case.