In the latest episode of The Burden of Proof: a JC Law Podcast, our hosts Peter Crawford, Esq. and Tyler Lewis are joined by the Managing Director of JC Law’s Criminal Department, Angel Campbell, Esq. to discuss all things DUIs.

We detail the whole legal process from the traffic stop, to possible penalties and what you should do if you were pulled over for suspicion of a DUI. Angel Campbell provides insight into what officers are looking for, the tests they administer at a traffic stop, as well as whether DUIs are eligible for expungement.

Next, we dive into ignition interlock devices, what they are, and how they are used for DUI prevention, and then discuss the differences between a DUI and a DWI. If you have questions about DUI laws in Maryland, this episode is for you!

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Remember; at JC Law, we aren’t just your lawyer. We’re your legal ally.

Episode Transcript:

Tyler: Welcome back to another episode of The Burden of Proof. I’m your host, Tyler Lewis, and I’m joined as always by cohost Peter Crawford. Peter, how are we doing?

Peter: Good, Tyler. How are you?

Tyler: Good. Good. So, where are we diving into today?

Peter: So today’s gonna be all about DUIs And for this discussion in and about DUIs, we brought in Angel Campbell, somebody who deals with a lot of DUIs on a weekly or monthly basis basis and who deals with the clients, the process, the procedure surrounding DUIs. So, let’s get into it.

Tyler: Awesome. Welcome, Angel. Just a question off the bat. Do you it’s summertime now and the weather is getting nice. Do you kinda see an uptick in DUI charges going into the summer months as opposed to kind of in the winter, or is it stay kind of steady?

Angel: You know, I think, DUIs are kinda related to holidays in my opinion. You know, you got the July fourth. You have, Saint Patty’s Day is a big one. So, yeah, definitely, I think in the summer, people are getting out a little bit more, having a good time. So I don’t know if I’ve noticed a big uptick, but I think the holidays definitely do impact it for sure.

Tyler: Gotcha. Cool. So let’s kinda dive into sort of what happens if you’re charged with a DUI so we can sort of start with the traffic stop. So so kinda lay the scene for us. What kinda happens when you get pulled over and what can sort of people expect and what should they do?

Angel: Yeah. So, officer’s gonna pull you over because he observed some kind of traffic violation. Right? So a lot of times with DUIs, we see poor driving, swerving, abruptly stopping, driving super slow. So first, the officer’s gotta have a reason to pull you over. And then once he does, he kinda starts his whole, like, okay. I pulled you over for this reason, but, I smell alcohol. Or where are you coming from? I’m right at this time of night, you know, or they kinda ask you some questions that might indicate the the term is that he has some kind of probable cause to believe that you’ve had some alcohol. Right? So he will, at some point, he’ll ask you some questions. You may, you know, talk about where you’ve been, what you’re doing, which is gonna lead the officer to doing, probably some tests if he believes that, you know, if he’s got a reasonable, belief that you had alcohol, he’ll probably ask you to do some tests and kinda talk to you about it.

Tyler: Gotcha. So what sort of what kind of tests can an officer administer at this

Angel: There are many. The normal ones are we call them standard field sobriety test. There’s pretty basic three tests that officers will do. It’s the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. You’ve probably seen it done. It’s where the officer has, like, the pen and the light. Right. And he’s like, follow my pen. They do that test pretty regularly. They do this test called the, walk and turn test, which is probably what you may have practiced in your college days of of walking a straight line and then turning around walking back. And then they have a one leg stand test. That’s the test where they want you to just stand there on one leg for thirty seconds. So those are kind of the basic tests. There are other tests. Sometimes they can get a DRE expert out there, to do certain other tests.

Tyler: What’s a DRE expert?

Angel: A DRE is a drug recognition expert. So it’s actually against the law to drive without calling your system with their which everyone knows that. But it could also be prescription drugs. It could also be, marijuana now is a big thing with it being illegal in Maryland. So you can’t always glean from those three basic tests whether somebody’s impaired or not, and you might the officer might have to get another expert to come out and do different tests. Like, there’s the backwards ABCs or, you know, you you probably seen some of these tests before you. There there are a lot of different ones, but we pretty much see those three main ones here, ma’am.

Tyler: And they’re just looking for, like, if you’re wobbling while you’re walking or if you can’t sort of form sentences.

Angel: Yeah. For sure. So fortunately, a lot of these, incidents or interactions are recorded on body cam now. So you can tell pretty quickly if somebody’s impaired or not. But, yeah, there are certain they call them clues. I think for the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, there are, like, six clues that the officer’s looking for, and they indicate which ones they’ve seen. So with the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, a lot of times we see six out of six clues for somebody who has something in their system. Now the other tests are a little bit more subjective in my opinion. That’s where as attorneys, we can make some pretty good arguments. Mhmm. So, like, the walk and turn test, I think they’re looking for eight clues there. And it can be, oh, didn’t didn’t count while they’re also stepping. You know? It’s a little bit more subjective in my opinion. And then the one leg stand test, I think there are four clues they’re looking for, and that’s kinda like you said. Are they wobbly? Are they steady? Where are their hands? Are they counting correctly? Mhmm. So there’s different things they’re looking for in those tests.

Peter: So you said those tests specifically, test for alcohol or is it alcohol, drugs, and marijuana?

Angel: So the the, standard field sobriety test really are looking at, you know, the alcohol, maybe the marijuana because it’s looking at your stability and things like that. Mhmm. But those tests are not necessarily good for, for example, prescription drugs or for marijuana. You know, looking at whether you’re stable or not might not be a good indication that there’s something in your system. So there are other tests that they do, like, on your eyes and on your other, areas of your body. Mhmm. But primarily, those tests are really looking at alcohol, maybe marijuana at some point.

Peter: They come up with any breathalyzer test specifically for marijuana yet?

Angel: Not yet. That’s actually a really cool thing. You’ll probably be a rich man if you figure it out.

Tyler: Right. Right.

Angel: Because no. Right now, we just got alcohol. So that’s the other thing that happens is the officer will pull you over and say, you know, I believe you’re impaired and then have you blow and you blow zero point zero, but you’re clearly messed up. Right? So, yeah, that’s kind of what we’re running into. I’m sure we’re gonna talk about the NBA implications of this too, and that that kinda comes into play a lot with respect to that.

Tyler: And back to the breathalyzer, can I if they ask me, can I say no?

Angel: You can do what you wanna do.

Tyler: So What are the implications of doing it?

Angel: Right. So that’s the real question.

Angel: Right? So if you have a Maryland driver’s license, just by virtue of having a license, there’s, like, a fine print that we don’t really talk about, we don’t really think about. But that fine prints is basically saying that because I have this license, if a officer believes that I’m impaired under the influence, then I will agree to submit to a test, a breathalyzer test. That’s what you’re agreeing to just by having your license. So if you decide, no. I don’t wanna take the test. I mean, you have a right. You have constitutional rights to say, no. I don’t wanna do that. But what will happen is you’re privileged to drive because driving is a privilege. It may be suspended for up to two hundred and seventy days if you refuse. That’s nine months. If you take the test and you come out, with the test being positive, then your license can be, suspended for up to six months. Now there’s ways around those, but, essentially, that’s what you’re looking at if you take or don’t take the tit.

Tyler: Gotcha. Wow. Yeah. I didn’t even realize there was that small fine print. Nobody even reads that. So it’s crazy. I don’t know. Let’s kinda dive into sort of what you mentioned before, the kind of two types of cases and sort of how they play out. So there’s obviously the criminal charge, but there’s also an MVA component as well.

Angel: That’s right. So anytime you get pulled over, for, you know, DUI case, there’s two things that happen. Number one is you’ve gotta deal with that privilege about your license. Right? And then the second, like you said, is you’ve got to deal with the court. Whenever we’re dealing with court, we’re saying you committed a crime here, so you can be subject to, you know, a year or sixty days depending on your charge of jail time. Whereas with your license, it’s not you can’t really, you know, say you’re gonna go to jail for anything, but you can say, well, I don’t think you should have this privilege. So each case, we have to deal with both of those things simultaneously. Now when you go to court, even the court implications may involve the MVA. They’re separate entities, but this one incident will have you dealing with both at the same time.

Tyler: So what happens in that criminal side of it could will affect the MVA.

Angel: Absolutely. Absolutely. So if you receive any convictions for anything under the DUI statutes, then that’s gonna have an impact on your license. Now the impact could be that, okay, you we’ll let you still drive, but you need to only drive for certain purposes or we’ll let you drive, but you must, participate in the ignition interlock program or you’re not gonna be able to drive at all. You’re gonna have a suspension for six months. It depends on what happens in your case. Now, we always talk about PBJs, not the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right? But probation before judgment, the reason why they’re so important because in Maryland, they’re not seen as convictions, which means in a DUI case, if you receive that, you’re not gonna have additional penalties through the MVA, and that’s what we want. Right? We want the least amount of penalties as possible. The MVA, you know, they’re they’ll give you this whole speech about we we don’t work for the NBA. We’re not a part of this. It’s separate. You know, and the judges give that speech speech and the office of administrative hearings also give those speeches to let you know that they’re separate and apart even though they feel like, you know, the same thing. It all arrives out of that same incident.

Tyler: And do they run concurrently, or is it like the criminal case will finish and figure out and then the MVA case will go?

Angel: Yeah. Just it just kinda depends. So as far as any punishment against you, the statute actually says that it should run concurrently because of the incident was, you know, this is all for arose out of the same incident. But in reality and practically speaking, it kinda depends on which route you go whether the issue is gonna run concurrently or not. So take, for example, an incident. You picked up a DUI on July fourth. Right? So that incident took place that day. The MVA knows that you didn’t blow because you didn’t know that you had to blow. And so then you’re dealing with the MVA about your license issue. They’re gonna try to do that right away. Okay. But you’re not gonna have a court date for several months more likely than not. So in that instance, you may have already done something or you’re trying to do something with your license, but you haven’t really actually gone to court. So it just kinda depends on where everything falls. But our job as your attorneys is to try to obviously have the least impact on you as possible.

Tyler: Awesome. And you mentioned, interlock devices, kind of dive into what those are.

Angel: Yeah. It’s it’s not great. Yeah. Nobody likes interlock. It’s just a blow and go in your car. I’ve seen a couple of them. They actually just look like cell phones, that are connected to the electronic system in your car, and you’ve got a blow in it in order, to turn your car on. So, obviously, there’s a lot of problems that can happen with respect to that, and sometimes we see them and we gotta deal with those. But, yeah, it’s just a blow going on.

Tyler: It was very common or if, like, you get a first DUI, you wouldn’t necessarily

Angel: Every case is different. So you can have a first DUI where you had an accident.

Tyler: Depends on the severity if anything.

Angel: Exactly. It it really depends on that. Depends on if you blew or if you didn’t flow. How how much did you participate? Did you get a conviction or not? There’s all sorts of factors that come into place when we’re figuring out if you’re gonna have to have that or not.

Tyler: Sure. I guess, also kinda dive into you can get a DUI, but there are also kind of few other charges you could kind of get faced with depending on sort of what type of stop it was and everything.

Angel: So Right.

Tyler: We dive into, like, DUI versus DWI. Mhmm. They kind of seem interchangeable, but they’re different.

Angel: Yes. There’s there’s all different, DUI, different types. So before we get there, though, let’s go back to that traffic stop. So when you got pulled over, the officer had to have a reason. Maybe he says you were driving recklessly or you were swerving or you didn’t stop at a red light. So you’re gonna get traffic citations, with anytime you receive this type of, charges against you. But then you’re also gonna get, depending on your particular incident, you can be charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, that carries a year. And it’s looking at, you know, did you actually, have something in your system that impairs your ability to operate a vehicle? Driving while impaired is a lower charge. It still it’s it’s very similar. Driving while impaired for our purposes carries a lower, penalty of sixty days incarceration. The big thing between all of these is, like, how much was in your system and how poor was your driving, to put it in simple terms. Like I said earlier, DUI charges anticipate, you know, prescription drugs, marijuana, and alcohol.

Tyler: Gotcha. Yeah. Because then you kinda see both of those and I’m it’s always kinda confusing. So it’s based off the differences, the severity, so based off of how how much you blow, like, what your test results come back as and Correct. Also that if you’re egregiously driving, that’s probably as well.

Angel: Absolutely. Yeah. So the statutes break it down a little bit more, but that’s pretty much what we’re looking at.

Tyler: Gotcha. Cool. Then I guess sort of we can dive into we touched on a little bit the sort of possible penalties, what you’re looking at for first time DUI. Obviously, once you get the second or third, it gets a little more serious. But kind of if you could lay out sort of what you’re looking at for a first time DUI with your license, jail time, sort of if you have to get any sort of devices, just kinda walk us through that.

Angel: Yeah. So if it’s your very first time, you don’t have any criminal history, you don’t have a really poor, driving record, and we believe that the state can prove the case. They can prove that your driver was poor. You know, the officer did have a valid reason to pull you over. There was alcohol in your system. On the first offense, the statutes only account for, like I said, a year in jail on the DUI and DUI per se, and then sixty days for the, you know, lower charges. Like you said, DUIs is really important to not have several, not get a second and third because the statute accounts for if you do, you can get additional penalties. So, like, on a second fence, you might be looking at two years. Then if we keep going, you can get five years. And there’s a certain point where the statute is just, just, like, ten years for this case.

Tyler: At some point, you gotta figure it out. But are they just the penalties tend to compound.

Angel: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a it’s a stepping stone. There’s also additional penalties that, like I said, if you decided not to blow, that could you could receive additional jail time just for that. Wow. So yeah.

Peter: So were the penalties always like this? Because I I No. I heard back that day that it wasn’t this bad. But, honestly, it was like the nineties, the eighties, the early two thousands. Is that when it started to change? Do you know why it changed?

Angel: Yeah. So you kinda test a lot. The historical knowledge, and my understanding of all that is, it kinda relates back to a specific incident here in Maryland, where, like, they were seeing, you know, significant, cases where people are just, you know, riding down the street. Obviously, the culture has changed a lot. We don’t just we put our seat belts on. We don’t grab our beer. We don’t start drinking.

Peter: I saw this one video on I think it was TikTok or YouTube Yeah. Where this this woman was driving with a beer and and then an outlaw outlaw drinking and driving it. And she’s like, I think it should be un American not to drink and drive it. Like, that’s the thought process people used to have.

Angel: They didn’t You’re you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. What what happened is, you know, people started getting hurt and Right. A lot of really, really bad accidents. There was a really bad one here in Maryland that kinda led to them saying, okay. Noah’s laws. We gotta we gotta change all this. Right. But you’re you’re right. Yeah. It used to be cool. I know, like, my my grandfather Right. You know.

Peter: Well, the cars just be different too. Right? Yeah. You couldn’t drive a hundred miles an hour down the highway back then and you’re sixty four four and now you’re That big body. Speed of fifty miles an hour.

Angel: It’s a car that’s so big and sturdy too. I guess, probably not much is gonna happen to anybody.

Peter: Yeah. Exactly.

Tyler: But I mean, it’s so prevalent nowadays. These things are needed. Yeah. You see every weekend, there’s somebody going out, getting into an accident, and they might have had something in their system. Right. Especially with legalization of marijuana, that brings more aspects and more sort of substances to be able to abuse while driving. So I definitely see the merit that we have to kind of get an increase to stop that.

Peter: Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t know somebody from high school? Are, like, have you never seen, like Yeah. The side of the road with, like, the cross and the flowers like that?

Tyler: They’re all all over.

Peter: Yeah. They are. So, I mean, it’s definitely prevalent inside. Within society, it’s definitely picked up over the last probably forty years.

Angel: Yeah. Definitely. One hundred percent.

Tyler: So, yeah, just to kind of go along and dive more into this, are DUIs expungible? I know I’m sure you see a lot of expungements. Is this something that could be eligible for an expungement?

Angel: As we sit here today, right this second, no. They’re not. Okay. But that actually is changing. So, in October of this year, we’re expecting to see, ex expecting to see DUIs become eligible for expungements.

Tyler: Wow.

Angel: So what the thought process used to be that, well, we need to be able to keep up with how many you’ve had because, obviously, there are graduated penalties like we talked about depending on if it’s your first, second, or whatever. But it just kinda seems unfair. You know, you can go get a really bad assault case or, you know, get certain other cases and you can get them expunged. And so finally, legislators have come around to changing that and, DUIs are gonna be eligible for expungement. It looks like they’re saying, you know, after fifteen years, of having nothing, you know, no additional cases, then you’ll you will be able to expunge them. So there’s certain other, requirements, but, yeah, they’re working on changing that so that as of October in this year of this year, DUIs will be expunged.

Tyler: Do do you even know why they wouldn’t weren’t eligible? Because it seems like maybe.

Angel:  I don’t think it’s fair. Obviously, I’m a criminal defense attorney. Right? You want me to hold on to something from thirty years ago. Right. And, normally, the a lot of the cases we have where they have multiples, it was a prior from, like, nineteen ninety or something. They were in college like p c or high school or something like that. So it like I said, it just kinda seems unfair.The the statute did provide for if it’s more than ten years, you know, they might not go so hard on you or whatever. But, I I think that’s all it was is, you know, not only has the mindset changed about us receiving these types of charges in the first place, but then also, you know, expungement. You should be able to expunge something like this. And we can if you haven’t had it in fifteen years, we’ll cut your break. Yeah. I mean, that’s fair.

Tyler: You shouldn’t still be penalized for some dumb mistake you made as a kid. And if it’s just one from fifteen years ago, I mean, why wouldn’t you at least take a look at it? So that’s it’s interesting that that’s finally changing, and I’m sure we’ll see a lot of those kind of pick up coming through because there are people probably with a DUI from twenty years ago that’s still sitting there, and then, like, oh, I should probably get it expunged. Yeah.

Angel: Yeah. Most people that I encounter, you know, they catch it on time and and, you know, that’s the end of it. And I believe those source people should be eligible and should receive the expungements on their records.

Peter: Mhmm. People make mistakes.

Angel: Yeah. Yeah.

Tyler: So, you also mentioned PBJ. So kind of talk to us how you could get a probation before judgment on a DUI. Is it just like it has to be your first one, or is it depending on a case? Sort of walk us through kinda

Angel: Yeah. So, officially, you’re eligible if it’s your first, and you’re eligible if you haven’t had one within ten years. That’s, you know, official. So yeah. I mean, like I said, it’s very fact based on what happened in your incident. If you didn’t hurt anybody, if your driving wasn’t so poor, you had an accident, if you cooperated with the officer, then you’re gonna be eligible for that probation before judgment. Again, this is assuming that the state can prove the case against you. And so that’s what we want. Right? This is not gonna, you know, blow up most people’s lives. You know? They, you know, they will have to get counsel and make sure that they’re guided through the process the right way to ensure that. But, yeah, probation before judgment is is what we want if they can prove your case, and you’re eligible for that on the first offense.

Tyler: Cool. Thank you.

Peter: Anything else?

Tyler: No. I think we kinda covered. It was a good sort of overview to kind of go from the beginning of when you sort of got pulled over and what to expect down the line. So, yeah, I mean, be careful out there. I know it’s nice out, but remember not to drink and drive because you don’t necessarily wanna end up with a charge. So Absolutely. Yeah.

Angel: Thank you. Don’t drink and drive people.

Peter: Yeah. We’re here, but don’t use us. Yeah.

Tyler: Thank you so much for the time, Angel. We really appreciate it. And, Pete, as always, thank you. stay tuned for the next episode. And, don’t forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, and we’ll see you next time. Thank you.