Defending Your Constitutional Rights
Many attorneys focus on the field sobriety tests, blood tests and breathalyzer tests that the police administer. These can indeed prove fruitful for weakening the prosecutor's case, but illegal checkpoints and illegal search and seizure issues can also be a source for police errors that can breathe life into a DUI defense.
Our Orlando illegal search and seizure defense attorneys — are available to represent clients throughout central Florida — look for police errors regarding illegal checkpoints and search and seizure issues. At the Law Offices of Mark L. Horwitz, P.A., we have more than 30 years of experience representing clients throughout central Florida in first offense and multiple DUI criminal defense.
Two common contexts in which the police commonly err are:
- Illegal checkpoints: There is nothing inherently illegal about the police setting up check points and stopping cars to check for violations of DUI laws. However, there are strict rules that regulate these checkpoints. Police cannot set them up in a way that stacks the deck. For example, they cannot set up a checkpoint in the parking lot of a bar at closing time. Further, the police are allowed to check some, but not all, of the cars that go through their checkpoints, but the checking has to be done in a way that is totally random.
- Illegal search and seizure: Police need to have a compelling reason to pull you over and check you for DUI, some articulable suspicion that you are indeed under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. Further, there are strict rules that limit what parts of your vehicle or person that they can search incident to a stop and in what way they can conduct these searches.
We are familiar with Florida's DUI penalties and processes. Our attorneys can help you uncover police errors in checkpoints and searches and seizures, which can reduce the charges brought against your or the sentences levied if you are convicted. In many cases, establishing error in checkpoints, stops, searches, breath and blood tests or roadside sobriety tests can render the prosecutor's most important evidence inadmissible.
Florida Illegal Checkpoints Attorney ∙ 866-784-0023
If you are facing DUI charges in Florida, call our law firm office or contact us online to speak with a lawyer in Orlando. Illegal search and seizure? Attorney investigations early in a case can uncover the key to your DUI defense.
