Rockville DUI Enforcement

DUI (driving under the influence) is among the most heavily and most successfully prosecuted criminal charges in the Montgomery County area. Police officers in Rockville, Bethesda, Silver Spring, and really any of the areas in Montgomery County that are known as the sort of the areas where there are lots of restaurants, bars, night clubs, are going to be heavily patrolled, particularly on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays for possible drunk drivers. It’s important for an individual to contact a DUI attorney in Rockville if they have been charged with a DUI.

Local Rockville law enforcement are cracking down on DUIs. As Rockville develops into a more densely populated area, more restaurants and bars begin to appear, leading to more potential instances of people driving while under the influence.

Enforcement of DUIs

DUIs are an area of focus for law enforcement officers because they can happen to anybody. Unlike shootings and armed robberies which typically take place in urban areas, DUIs can happen to people of any socio-economic background, any educational background, and really any age group. For that reason every community is impacted by DUIs, no matter how safe they are from other kinds of criminal activities. This is why every police department has a DUI enforcement unit, no matter where they are in the country.

Nuances To the Law Enforcement Practices That Make Rockville DUI Cases Unique

Rockville DUI cases are only unique in that there is a tremendous police presence in the Rockville area. In Montgomery County, Rockville is really the headquarters of all the county judicial activities. It is where the Circuit Court is located, one of the District Courts is located, the juvenile court is located, and the police headquarters are located. For that reason, it is the base and the hub of all police activities and has the strongest police presence in this particular area for any criminal activity enforcement, not just DUI enforcement.

Rockville DUI Checkpoints

DUI checkpoints are common in Rockville and the reason is because Rockville has a number of restaurants and bars which people frequent, particularly Thursday through Sunday. There are a lot of sports bars in the Rockville area which residents visit, particularly in the fall and winter months, to watch sporting events. Rockville is also in close proximity to Washington, D.C. People are typically driving back from Washington D.C. where they might have had a night out and been drinking, and it is a good place for officers to set up checkpoints. This is particularly true late at night after holidays and sporting events, so they can try to catch people who are driving under the influence of alcohol. We see some of them most often on Sundays, New Year’s Eve and then usually in the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays.

Major Rockville, Maryland Roads With Frequent DUI Checkpoints

DUI checkpoints are most likely set up on Rockville Pike and various areas of I-270, which are the busiest roads in Rockville. People also are most likely to take these roads when travelling back and forth from social engagements, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and places of that nature.

What is Considered a DUI Stop in Rockville?

A DUI is a usually a traffic stop of some kind where an officer approach an individual and has reason to believe that that individual is driving under the influence or impaired by alcohol. When that individual is approached, the officer gets a clue about the person’s sobriety either from how their driving was, whether they have bloodshot watery eyes, slurred speech and odor of alcohol on their breath, and slow motor skills.
If the officer was suspicious of alcohol, he may ask the individual whether or not they had consumed any alcohol and at that time might get an answer in the affirmative. If the individual had in fact consumed alcohol, the officer might ask that person to step out of the vehicle to be given field sobriety tests, which would be series of tests that the officer received training on from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those tests would be:

The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test
The One Legged Stand test
The Walk and Turn test

The officer would be testing for different things including divided attention to see what a person’s motor skills were like. If the officer had grounds, he or she might ask the individual to submit to a preliminary breath test, which would be a small device the individual would blow into by their car so the officer could get a reading on whether the person was driving a vehicle with alcohol in their system or not. There would be an arrest that would take place if the officer believes there was probable cause for the arrest and subsequently another chemical breath test might be offered at the police station, a more formal chemical breath test.

Rockville Drug DUI Enforcement

Drug-related DUIs are a little bit special. They’re different than your alcohol-related DUI because when somebody is charged with a drug-related DUI, the post-arrest process is a little different.
If the police officers suspect after a traffic stop that somebody is under the influence of drugs as opposed to alcohol, they will contact a DRE or a drug recognition expert.
A drug recognition expert is somebody who is trained in a particular area of field sobriety tests that are more advanced than the field sobriety tests that one might be given just for an alcohol impairment. They do a lot more to test an individual’s motor skills, to determine whether or not they were under the influence of some kind of drug. In a DUI that is drug-related, the police officers who are administering field sobriety tests are trained to look for things that are different than one might see in alcohol-related DUI tests. Additionally, instead of giving the chemical breath test in these situations, police officers might ask for a blood test of the individual to demonstrate what they had consumed and what level of that drug they had in their system.

How DUI Cases Are Handled in Rockville

Typically, a prosecutor has the case before them in the courthouse. They have a conversation with the police officers and defense attorney and make various representations as to which plea offers they might give to resolve the case. The defense attorney takes all of that information back to their client to determine the best options for resolution of the case.
If the defense attorney believes the government has a strong case, they typically discuss with their client the resolution options which might minimize the impact in terms of jail time, probation, or points. If the defense attorney believes that the government does not have a case, then the advice to the client would be to not accept any offers and take the case to trial. If the trial takes place, either a judge or a jury will decide whether or not the government proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.