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Hartford DUI Lawyers, DWI Laws and Drunk Driving Defense
The drunk driving laws of Connecticut and the United States Supreme Court make it easy for you to be pulled over. Police officers are allowed to pull you over based on a “reasonable articulable suspicion” that you are committing a crime, i.e. driving under the influence. They can pull you over and ask you a lot of questions without first having advised you of your constitutional rights. This is called an investigative detention. Now you have the right to refuse to answer any questions. In fact you have the constitutional right to refuse to answer the questions and to tell the officer to either arrest you or let you go. The likelihood is that you will be arrested! However, if you answer the questions you will be incriminating yourself and more than likely arrested. You can’t win!
Hartford DUI Resource offers the information that you need if you are pulled over and arrested for a DUI, driving under the influence, also known as DWI, driving while intoxicated.
Here are a few questions that you may have.
The DUI Arrest
 The police officer’s observation of your driving, his stopping you, talking with you and giving you a field sobriety test is all being done to establish probable cause to arrest you. Once he asks you out of the car he will have you perform the following field sobriety tests—an eye test called the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test, the Walk And Turn Test and the One Leg Stand Test. He will give you these tests after instructing you what to do inorder to determine whether or not you can do several things at the same time—a type of diverted attention test. He is trying to determine if alcohol has affected your ability to listen to instructions and then perform the tests according to those instructions. Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? Well, can you? If you cannot, he will arrest you for DUI. If you can, he will more than likely arrest you, also. You can’t win.
When you are arrested he will take you to the police station and offer you either a breath, blood or urine test. This is the way that works. Connecticut DUI law says that if you drive in Connecticut you give your implied consent to take one of these tests if asked by the police officer. He chooses the test, you don’t! He will usually ask you to take a breath test on the Intoxilyzer 5000EN machine. This is the breath machine of choice in Connecticut. Before asking you to take a test he gives you an advisement with regard to the testing procedure and what happens if you take the test or refuse to take the test. He then gives you the opportunity to call an attorney.
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