Who do you want as your attorney? The Master or the student? Patrick Silva has over 21 years of DUI experience, he has been published in DUI reference books, he has spoken in front of hundreds of attorneys at conferences, taught classes to lawyers on his secrets and strategies, and has a nationally listened to podcast dedicated to teaching other DUI lawyers how to win.  (909)798-1500
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What is a DUI / DWI?

Good Morning this is Attorney Patrick Silva coming at you from DUI TV.
 Today I am going to explain what is a DUI or a DWI? Now a DUI or DWI it depends on what part of the country you’re in. But in California that’s where I practice we call them DUI (Driving Under the Influence) Now what is it and what is the exact proof they have to have? There is two codes they are going to charge you with on is called 23152(a) we’ll call that driving impaired and the other one is 23152(b) that’s called over the legal limit. When you get arrested you’re going to see those two codes written on the middle of your citation and your going to say, what is that how do they know my blood alcohol level already? Well they don’t they just write that on everybody’s ticket. But driving impaired that means they’re going to look for things that are either physical impairment or mental impairment. That means they are going to try and give you the voodoo psychical physical test they call them field sobriety test but that is just a name they give them to make them sound more credible then the actually are. And the you have the second one that is just the number. Now lets attack 231529(a) that is driving impaired to an appreciable degree they have look at things at what type of driving were you doing. Well if you’re driving out after midnight, it’s 2am and you’re leaving the bar they pull you over for no front license plate is that an indication of bad driving , No, they pull you over for no tags is that bad driving , No, they pull you over for tinted windows is that bad driving, No. What you are going to see usually they’re going to say oh he was weaving no in the case law in all 50 states weaving has 50 different definitions. But in California under a case called people v Perez it defined as pronounced movement for a substantial distance, what exactly does that mean, it means it is more then just a little drift from the center line. So they have to look at the driving ok and then the cops are going to say well he had slurred speech, what exactly does that mean, well I have a whole line of cross examination were I tear up a cop on that. What’s the odor of an alcohol mean, it doesn’t mean what your blood alcohol content means. Then he’s going to give you the voodoo test here’s the winner for us in order for those voodoo field sobriety test to be counted in court, the cop has to give them right and he has to give them under what’s called NHTSA guide lines (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration). I haven’t met a cop yet that could accurately give or know how to give them. Remember the NHTSA manual the one that we use is 465 pages. I broke that down have almost everything memorized in it. Now let talk about the (b) count 23152(b) over the legal limit, just because you have the number doesn’t mean the numbers right. Now you are going to have two types of numbers you’re going to have the breathe number and have a blood number, so you might have one, the other or both. Well here’s the problem with breathe, breathe is guessing what’s in your blood, it does it by something called a partition ratio, it’s an exchange factor that the machine is calibrated on to say for every one part of alcohol we find in your blood it’s equal to that same part of alcohol the found in 2100cc of your breathe. I spit out a lot of stuff there but this is what it means, it’s a conversion factor, the problem is that conversion factor has a huge range the machine is set at 2100 it could be as low as 600 to as high as 3000, what does that mean that if you blow into the machine and it’s a .10 that means truly you could been below a .05 or as high as a .15 that’s the problem with the breathe testing. And then we have to look at the blood testing, blood testing man is a whole other set of problems. But where I practice primarily San Bernardino and Riverside County, L.A. county, Orange. I’ll take San Bernardino, Riverside. San Bernardino is out dated by 25 years on the machine they use, it is called a single column gas chromatography and the American board or Forensic Toxicology in 2014 stop certifying those labs for the testing of alcohol on a persons blood, it says it is not good enough. They are going to change to a dual column but that’s on the horizon. Same thing in Riverside. So in a nut shell I think I gave you a minimal explanation of what’s a DUI or DWI. So they have two things they have to prove, either driving impaired to appreciable degree or over the legal limit. Now you can imagine there’s 100 different subsets on each one that I attack a case on. 
This is Attorney Patrick Silva have a great day.

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Patrick J. Silva - Attorney at Law

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