South Carolina Felony DUI Charges: Your Case Is Hopeless Only If You Decide it Is

For the accused, felony DUI charges can seem hopeless. But, in our experience, there are many things an accused can do to either win the case or prove yourself worthy of less harsh punishment if convicted. Here’s how our firm generally looks at the defense of these cases:

A Few Potential Defenses in Felony DUI Cases:

• The crash wasn’t your fault. To convict you, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt you caused the crash by committing a traffic violation or driving carelessly. Often, your fault is clear. But if not, we can explore retaining an accident reconstruction to help us develop a convincing presentation you were not at fault in the crash. 
• You weren’t impaired.  The State has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt you were impaired. We may be able to establish—based on the State’s own toxicology reports—that the prosecution can’t prove you impaired. And those reports might just prove you weren’t. We can explore retaining a private toxicologist or breath test expert to evaluate whether you were impaired and help determine if the State improperly tested you. Hopefully, we can get videos of you at the scene and giving your breath test that can help establish that you weren’t impaired. If you expressed sincere concern for the other motorists on the video, it can help show your remorse, even if you are convicted.
• Technical defenses. In addition, there are many technical defenses available in felony DUI cases, as well as defenses that will depend on the circumstances of your specific experience. These include highly complex legal arguments that can be raised at trial, like pointing out the State does not have a proper chain of custody for any test samples – that is, they cannot satisfy the legal standard of sufficient assurance the samples weren’t tampered with.  Another example might include the argument officers taking a blood sample needed to get a warrant first, but didn’t, violating your constitutional rights. 

Help Yourself

You can’t ask for a bigger wake-up call if you have a problem with alcohol or drugs. It’s time to address it head-on through rehab and commitment to sobriety forever. This is the part of your case we can’t do for you. However, if you can prove to everyone you’ve learned from this and fixed it through rehabilitation, followed by participating in programs like extended treatment, therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous or a combination of these, it can go light-years toward helping you not just in your case, but in helping you slay your demons to change your life forever.

Victim Outreach

This is an extremely delicate but vital part of your case. It begins when your lawyer reaches out to the victims’ lawyers. Even if you’re innocent, these folks probably got hurt through no fault of their own, so we work to make sure they have access to your auto liability insurance information to make a claim for compensation for their injuries. We also help them with your insurance company, if your insurance company gets unreasonable. We’ve even arranged meetings between our clients and victims before sentencing so they can see a personal, sincere apology from our client to help the victims ask for less harsh punishment at sentencing. That won’t work in every case, but if victims are open to it and it’s done genuinely, it can work to the good of all involved.

Act Now to Help Your DUI Defense

Once the initial fog of fear and horror of felony DUI charges lifts, you’ve got to act to help yourself, right now. Your case is hopeless only if you decide it is, and only if you never enlist the help of an experienced felony DUI lawyer. And even if the State has an airtight case, the minimum sentence and probation are impossible only if you decide they are.

If you’ve been charged with felony DUI in Spartanburg, Greenville, or nearby, you owe it to yourself to do all you can to prevent doing hard time. You owe it to society to work hard to show you’re worth giving another chance. Whether your case is defensible or not, your life is on the line. You need an experienced, confident advocate to stand up for you against these charges and guide and protect you.

That’s where we come in. It won’t cost you a thing to discuss your case with us: call us today toll free at 866.230.1841. For more information on DUI cases in general, ask for a copy of our free report when you call to set up your confidential meeting.