Question: What are the charges of DUI per se and DUI less safe in Georgia?
Answer: There are two types of DUI. There are what they call a DUI per se, which means that someone’s blood alcohol level was .08 or higher. And then there’s also a DUI less safe. DUI per se is a technical DUI. The most common way to prove that is through the Intoxilyzer or a blood test. Basically that is showing that someone’s blood alcohol level is .08 or higher. But they have to have a number for that and they can’t use things like the breathalyzer at the scene. They’ve got to have a scientific test to show what the blood alcohol level is at that point. That’s the harder DUI to beat, but we routinely beat those, too. It’s a more scientific, more technical. Sometimes we have to utilize experts to do that, but we do beat that one as well. The DUI less safe, that’s a more subjective DUI. That is basically saying that someone has consumed enough alcohol that they are less safe to drive then they would normally be. I have had trials where I have used that term against the prosecution by basically saying that that whole term of less safe is arbitrary because alcohol by itself would make you less safe under their theory, even if you weren’t technically DUI. And I’ve convinced juries several times that that is completely arbitrary, but it doesn’t stop them from pursuing it. But what they do with a less safe DUI, they put you through a subjective field sobriety test to try to show that you’re having trouble with your concentration, that you’re having trouble with your balance and keeping steady; anything they can do to show that you are less safe to drive a car, that’s what they’re going to do. And they don’t have to have a number for that. They can charge you with that even if they don’t have an Intoxilyzer or they don’t have a blood test. They can charge you with that based solely on their subjective observations. But the key with that is that we can always cross examine them on those, we can always find weaknesses on those. It’s highly subjective. DUI less safe is something that we routinely beat and we can often beat it at a preliminary hearing.