UTAH DUI LESSON NUMBER ONE

Do not perform field sobriety tests.

FREE LEGAL ADVICE!

DEAR UTAH DRIVERS and those who drive through Utah:

You are NOT REQUIRED to perform Standard Field Sobriety Tests or answer questions about whether you have consumed alcohol or drugs or where you are going, etc.

YOU ARE REQUIRED to step out of the car when asked by the cop, that is a "lawful command" but you are NOT required to follow his finger with your eyes, do the 9 step walk and turn or the one leg raise, you can even decline to blow in the PORTABLE breath tester on the roadside, BUT:

ONCE YOU ARE ARRESTED YOU MUST SUBMIT TO A CHEMICAL TEST, like the breath test, or blood test, the cop gets to choose, not you, and refusal to submit to this test results in an administrative revocation of your Utah driving privileges, even if your license is from another state or country, for 18 months on a first refusal.

A huge number, maybe a majority of the people who call me with a DUI, and were also a 'REFUSAL' on the chemical test, already performed the field tests, failed them (they always think they passed), and that failure of SFSTs IS THE PROBABLE cause to arrest you and to get a warrant to draw your blood.

SO THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING you can do is perform the field tests, get arrested because you failed them, then refuse the breath or blood test.

And if you don't understand that but boldly do the worst thing you could do, it makes it MUCH HARDER for the attorney to undo your screw up. So....

DON'T do field sobriety tests, but if you are arrested, consent to the breath or blood test and SHUT UP!

Oh, you will know you are under arrest because they put handcuffs on you, but THEY DON'T READ YOU YOUR MIRANDA RIGHTS ON A DUI, until after you have either consented to refused the chemical test. Then and only then do they try to ask you about what happened, and SHUT THE HELL UP!

How do you refuse field tests? POLITELY, or your belligerence can be an indicia of, or an articulated fact that supports, probable cause that you are impaired. So you politely, in a normal voice while looking down at your shoes say, "my lawyer said to never do field tests" or just say NO as Nancy Reagan was fond of pretending was a thing.