People often assume that drunk driving is obvious. They believe that police officers arrest people who cause crashes or drive on the wrong side of the road. Technically, driving under the influence (DUI) charges often follow displays of dangerously bad driving.
Police officers may know as soon as they initiate a traffic stop that a driver is probably drunk. Other times, questions may arise when they interact with the driver. Some motorists display clear signs of impairment when communicating with police officers despite driving safely. Others may answer questions in a way that implies they may have had too much to drink.
Police officers who pull people over for completely unrelated reasons may come to suspect drunk driving. They might even arrest the driver if they fail sobriety or chemical breath tests. Despite what many people hope, it is not possible to fight DUI charges just by proving that a defendant drove well in the moments leading up to their arrest.
The state doesn’t need to prove impaired ability
Prosecutors face a difficult task in most criminal cases. They have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that someone broke the law. That is a relatively high standard for evidence. A prosecutor doesn’t need to convince the courts that the defendant drove in a way that made them appear drunk to secure a DUI conviction. Technically, the only thing the state has to prove is that the motorist was over the legal limit for their blood alcohol concentration (BAC).
The current rules in Georgia make it a crime to drive with a BAC of over 0.08% in most scenarios. Some drivers are subject to lower limits than that. Even if a driver has a high alcohol tolerance and didn’t have difficulty controlling their vehicle, driving while over the legal limit is still a crime.
There might be other ways to fight those pending charges. If the only evidence of impairment that the state has is a chemical test result, there could be several viable defense strategies available to a DUI defendant. Learning about state law is a good starting point for those hoping to fight pending DUI charges, even though the existing Georgia statutes make it a crime to drive with impaired capabilities or with an elevated BAC.