PT6M41S
“So, let's say you've been charged with a DUI, now what? You were pulled over, the cop either asked you to do a breath or a blood test, and you either gave them that or you refused, and now you're set to go to court. First and foremost it is imperative that you find an attorney and hire one immediately, unless you qualify for the public defender, and then you can go that route. But having an attorney that understands the DUI laws here in Colorado is paramount to you successfully getting through this process.”
“usually what happens is when you get arrested for a DUI, you're given a ticket by the officer, they talk with you about whether you want to have a DMV hearing, they'll give you that little piece of paper, then they're also gonna give you the piece of paper saying when your next court date is. If you decided to hire an attorney, which again, you really should, but if you decide to hire an attorney, what's gonna happen is you're gonna go to that attorney, you're gonna give them that court date on the piece of paper and tell them when your court date is.”
“Generally they're gonna set, and they being the court, generally the court is gonna set you in what's called the first appearance center if you don't have an attorney. The first appearance center is a place where anyone who has a traffic offense comes in and they meet one-on-one with the district attorney, this is again where it's very beneficial to have an attorney go do this for you because a lot of the times we can appear at the first appearance center on your behalf, so you don't have to do that. Here at the Right Law Group, I always go for my clients so they don't have to go through that process, they don't have to sit and wait long hours and deal with the wait, and then have to talk to the district attorney and possibly risk saying something that's not helpful to their case.”
“So, if you hire an attorney, what we do is we go in we file our entry of appearance letting the court know we're representing you on this matter, and then the court will take that, and send it to a division judge. So, the first appearance center, there are no judges down there, when your attorney enters on the case, we actually move the process along a little faster, so you're not left just hanging waiting around. What normally happens is you have a couple of what are called pre-trial conferences. So at a pre-trial conference, that's an opportunity for your attorney to sit and talk with the district attorney about the facts of the case, the mitigation that they see, what an appropriate plea bargain might be, or if we wanna take this case to trial, what the issues in the case are.”
“Usually courts are giving us about one to two pre-trial conferences. Sometimes when we get there, if your attorney just got on and the DA hasn't sent over discovery on the case, you may not get anything done that first time. Sometimes the DAs are missing things, so you just have to be patient with the process, and I understand that it can get frustrating, but just know that these processes normally take about six months at least, to get through this whole ordeal.”
“Now, when you're gonna court, a decision time will come when you'll have to decide whether you're gonna take this to trial, or whether you're gonna take a plea agreement. With the pre-trial conferences, once you've had your attorney talk to the district attorney, we're then gonna decide what different route we wanna take, so there are two different paths. If you're going through with the plea agreement, what will happen is after the pre-trial conference, your attorney will set what's called a plea and sentencing date. At that time, you're gonna be coming before the judge to enter a plea before the court, and at the plea and sentencing, you and your attorney have worked out a deal with the district attorney.”
“Now, before that date, there's a lot that you're gonna have to do. You're gonna have to go to the probation department, talk with a probation officer, they usually make you come for two different appointments, and they're gonna review everything with you as far as whatever happened in your specific case. What I do with my clients is I talk with them and prepare them for some of the questions they're gonna get, and if you have any questions about those, or if you want more in information, feel free to contact us, and I'm happy to give you that information.”
“If you go the second route, and you decide to take this track to trial, there are a couple different things that are gonna happen. One, your attorney is gonna review all the evidence in the case, review all the discovery, and see if there are motions that need to be filed on your behalf, and you could be setting a motions hearing date. At a motions hearing date, you go through the process of questioning the police officer, and the attorney digs in and tries to point out all the holes in your case.”
“Once a motion hearing date comes, you then proceed to the next date, which is the pre-trial readiness date. So, what that's called is a pre-trial readiness conference. At that time, your attorney and the district attorney are gonna come before the judge, and tell the judge whether or not they are ready to proceed to trial. Now, usually on our side we're gonna be ready to go, everything's gonna be together because we don't usually have as many witnesses for DUIs.”
“Unfortunately, the district attorney, a lot of the times isn't ready. They either don't have the cops, or they don't have their people who do the blood testing. Now, if it's something that's inappropriate, we're gonna object for you, we're gonna try to get it kicked out on a technicality, but I always like my clients to be prepared.”
“If the district attorney is ready and they have all their witnesses together, and we're ready and have all our witnesses together, it then proceeds to the next date, and that next date is your jury trial. If you have more questions about jury trials, we also have a video on kind of, how a jury trial goes, and what to expect in those situations.”
“First and foremost it is imperative that you find an attorney and hire one immediately, unless you qualify for the public defender, and then you can go that route. But having an attorney that understands the DUI laws here in Colorado is paramount to you successfully getting through this process.”
“the big thing that I wanna convey to you is it's not the end of the world. DUIs are not the end. We can handle it. Many many people get past this just fine”
“The big thing I wanna stress to you is two points: One, it is incredibly, incredibly important that you hire an attorney because of all the different nuances that happen in a DUI case, you really need someone who digs in there and can understand what's going on and see all the potential options that you have. Two, know that it's gonna take a little bit of time.”
“Here at the Right Law Group, I always go for my clients so they don't have to go through that process, they don't have to sit and wait long hours and deal with the wait, and then have to talk to the district attorney and possibly risk saying something that's not helpful to their case.”
“these processes normally take about six months at least, to get through this whole ordeal.”
“Now, if it's something that's inappropriate, we're gonna object for you, we're gonna try to get it kicked out on a technicality, but I always like my clients to be prepared.”