DUI/Refusal

Convictions for DUI and/or Refusal can have a major detrimental impact on one’s ability to earn a living as they carry periods of license suspension ranging from 3 months to 20 years, thousands of dollars in fines and surcharges, and, in some cases, mandatory jail time. If you have been charged with DUI or Refusal in New Jersey, it is important that you select elite and proven legal counsel to represent you. Schiller Law regularly represents individuals that have been arrested and charged with DUI and Refusal throughout New Jersey.

Unfortunately, some law firms today will take your money, show up to court, tell you that there is nothing that they can do because the evidence is overwhelming, and then recommend you plead guilty to DUI and/or Refusal. At Schiller Law, the approach is just the opposite, which is backed by repeated, successful results and client satisfaction. Our New Jersey DUI Attorneys use aggressive, cutting-edge approaches in the defense of DUI and Refusal charges on behalf of our clients. We diligently review the facts of every case with a focus on exposing every single issue in the prosecution’s case and presenting all relevant legal defenses in order get the charges dismissed or downgraded.

Do I Need a DUI Lawyer?

Yes. You need an attorney that knows how to try a case, not an attorney that’s going fold at the last minute and recommend that their client plead guilty to an offense rather than taking the case before a judge and cross examining the officers involved. You need an attorney that has experience in cross examining police officers and knows how to win cases.  Our DUI lawyers can help to either get the charge dismissed or to reduce the sentence associated with the DUI offense.

How We Approach DUI Cases

There are many ways that you can attack a DUI charge in New Jersey. We defend DUI charges in three ways. First, we determine whether there was a legitimate and lawful reason for the police to pull you over. If the answer to that question is no, then there is a possibility that our DUI lawyers can have the entire matter dismissed outright. If the police did have a valid reason to pull you over, for instance, your taillight was out, or you made an improper turn, or you were speeding, we move on to the next step - and that is did the police have probable cause to arrest you for suspicion of DUI. If the police did not have probable cause to arrest you for suspicion of DUI and bring you back to the police station to submit to the Breathalyzer, then again, there is a strong possibility that we can have your charges dismissed.

In some cases, the police did have a valid reason to pull you over and the police did have probable cause to arrest you for suspicion of DUI. When those first two issues support the prosecution’s case, we explore the third step, which is to have the results of your breath test suppressed from your case. Without evidence of your blood alcohol level, the prosecution can only prove your guilt through the police officer’s observations of you. Also, the penalties for a DUI, without evidence of one’s blood alcohol level, are drastically reduced in many situations.

Probable Cause and Field Sobriety Testing

Brian Schiller possesses a unique, in-depth knowledge of the laws surrounding DUI as well as the procedures that law enforcement must follow throughout the course of a DUI stop and arrest. Using the analysis above, Mr. Schiller has achieved the dismissal of DUI charges through motions and trial time and time again.

Oftentimes, Schiller Law finds success in attacking the probable cause for the arrest in a DUI case. The way that police officers establish probable cause is by their observations of how you were driving, by their interaction with you - the way you are talking and the way that you are responding to their questions. But the most important observation that the police will use to establish probable cause that you are driving while intoxicated are through field sobriety tests.

In New Jersey, there are three standardized field sobriety tests that are generally administered. They are the HGN test (Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus), the walk and turn test and the one leg stand. A successful and proven DUI lawyer will be well-versed in how these tests must be administered by the police, as well as what clues are used by officers to determine whether or not someone passed or failed each test.

When Experience Matters

Once Schiller Law is retained to defend a client in a DUI or Refusal case, the first thing that we do is obtain all video associated with the arrest or with the motor vehicle stop. The video could come in the form of the dash cam video, what is known as the MVR, or what now is becoming more readily used, Body Camera footage, as body cams are being instituted in most police departments across New Jersey. Once we have all video, we can see exactly what happened from the police officer’s point of view. We will assess our client’s operation of the motor vehicle, whether or not they committed any motor vehicle infractions and even if they did commit a motor vehicle violation, were they operating their vehicle otherwise in a normal manner. We will listen to the conversation between our client and the police officer, in order to gauge whether our client is having any issues communicating with the officer, whether or not they are responding to the questions and whether or not their speech is slurred.

Most importantly, however, we will focus on the field sobriety tests. We find oftentimes that our lawyers know more about the field sobriety tests than the police officers that are administering them. Schiller Law has successfully defended DUI and Refusal cases because we were able to establish that either the police officer didn’t know how to administer these tests or did not know what he was looking for in the test, or that the person actually passed the field sobriety tests, despite the arresting officer’s belief that the tests were failed.

How Long Does a DUI Case Take?

A common question our clients want to know is how long will this process take. The answer is in New Jersey DUI cases are supposed to be completed within 60 days, but realistically, that never happens. Usually, a safe time frame would be three to six months, but we have cases that have lasted up to two or three years.

Facing Multiple Convictions?

In some cases, clients are facing their second, third or even fourth DUI charge. In those cases, Schiller Law will collaterally attack all prior convictions through Post-Conviction Relief applications. The goal in doing so is to vacate any prior convictions using a variety of legal tactics to reduce the potential penalties associated with the new charge(s). Our firm has had substantial success collaterally attacking prior DUI convictions on behalf of our clients.

Contact Us Today

A DUI charge can have a significant impact on your personal life. With a loss of license and mounting fines looming over you, choosing the right lawyer to represent you can make all the difference in the outcome. If you or someone you know has been charged with DUI and/Refusal in New Jersey, contact Schiller Law today for a free, in-person consultation. At that consultation, we will discuss the particular facts of your case and provide a detailed analysis on how we intend to attack the charge(s) on your behalf.