First, if a lawyer guarantees that he will get your case dismissed have him put it in writing , and I will represent you for FREE because criminal lawyers cannot ethically present that they can be hired for a specific result. To do that is a violation of State Bar Ethics, and a lawyer can be sanctioned.
After practicing DWI law in Texas for 40 years or so, I have found that it’s getting a lot harder to represent people in DWI cases. Back in the day we were getting not guilty verdicts left and right, on high breath tests, with vomiting defendants after a crash! Back then when a driver killed someone in a DWI accident, he got charged with criminally negligent homicide and 3 years probation. That was considered harsh. You could drive around with an open beer in your car as long as you weren’t drunk. Also, the legal limit was .10. No one went to jail. So, there were some bad things as well as good things about the justice system back then.
However, in today’s courts the laws concerning DWI have significantly changed thanks to the efforts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and law enforcement lobbyists. There are always breath or blood tests in courts. There is a video from the scene of the arrest. The State will call expert witnesses on intoxication during trial. There are stiffer penalties after convictions. There is more alcohol monitoring before trial and on probation. Additionally, the DPS administrative penalties and collateral vocational consequences of a DWI conviction can be even more severe that the actual court punishment.
You need a lawyer with some actual expertise and experience to help in a DWI case. No lawyer can just put up a website, call himself a DWI lawyer, and start getting cases dismissed. The judicial system is not corrupt. The money that goes to a lawyer cannot be used to influence a court or a prosecutor. DWI cases are won or negotiated in a courtroom or in the courthouse. Experience, training and skill in DWI defense are not taught in law school.
In a DWI trial an alcohol concentration number has the greatest evidentiary value for the prosecutor. Jurors usually forget everything else that is said during the trial once they hear that number: .08 or greater. Therefore, if it is the wrong specimen; it is inaccurate, or it is false for any reason, justice is denied! It is imperative for the DWI lawyer to understand the underlying science and procedures involved in blood and breath testing. Government analysts make mistakes; they tell lies; they are biased in favor of the State; their equipment breaks down; they mislabel specimens, and they test people out of sequence attributing test results to the wrong person. The types of errors can be simple or complex. The errors can relate to a single person or to an entire batch of persons tested. For further information, please see my blog on this website which refers to specific cases I have tried.
I have been trained to recognize these errors and to litigate them. I have decades of experience in legal issues concerning: unconstitutional searches and seizures; trial errors; illegal auto stops; false or illegal confessions; the use and misuse of retrograde extrapolation of alcohol and drug concentration in breath and blood; improper field sobriety testing; cross-examination of expert witnesses; and many other issues. You can go to “ scholar.google.com ” and under “case law,” federal and state, type in “George Scharmen.” There will be a lengthy series of cases involving these issues that are published from my jury trials.
Know who you are hiring before you make the decision. Make certain that the attorney who you hire, if he represents he is a “specialist” or “board certified,” is actually an expert who has been board certified. It’s easy. Just go to https://www.tbls.org/FindLawyer.aspx