Charged with DUI and Refused the Chemical test?
Colorado law requires you to take a chemical test when requested by law enforcement. You don’t have to take the test BUT you face serious consequences by refusing a chemical test. The Department of Motor Vehicles–the people that give you the drivers license may take your license for one year without any type of probationary license. If you have refused a test and refuse a test a second time, you face losing your license for two years. Furthermore any revocation of your license based on the results from your case happen consecutively to the refusal revocation.
So what happens in court with the chemical test refusal?
District Attorneys rarely offer plea bargains to people that refused a chemical test. Fighting the case is your best approach. At trial the jury is told that the fact that you refused can be used as consciousness of guilt. Often times the fact you have refused a chemical test can be explained to a jury and jurors do listen. A DUI case is broken down into four parts. The driving, the sensory observations by the officer, the field sobriety gymnastics and the results of any chemical test. Bad driving can be explained. The officer makes sensory observations that look for intoxication and rarely takes note of observations that show sobriety. The field sobriety tests are seldom done properly by law enforcement. The chemical test is the final piece of a driving under the influence investigation. If you refuse the test, the government gets the advantage of arguing that if the defendant was innocent he had the opportunity to show it and refused. Not is all lost in refusal cases. The driving, sensory observations and field sobriety gymnastics can all be explained to a jury. If the field sobriety tests are completed with little problems, you have a good shot at beating the refusal case.
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