Rockville MVA Hearing Lawyer
A Rockville MVA hearing lawyer is very important in helping you with the MVA hearing process regarding a license suspension after receiving DUI charges. First of all, the hearing request form asks individuals for an attorney’s name so they can indicate which attorney(s) will be aiding them in their case process.
An MVA hearing attorney in Rockville can help you identify exactly what issues could potentially get your license suspended, as well as possible defenses to the suspension. Occasionally, the MVA’s documents are incomplete during the hearing, which means the case can be dismissed at that proceeding.
DUI License Suspensions
Depending on the circumstances of the case, many different things can happen to your license after a DUI. If it is your first DUI offense, you are potentially facing a suspension of your privilege to drive for up to 45 days if your alcohol concentration level was between a .08 and .14.
If your alcohol concentration level was a .15 or higher, you are facing a more significant period of suspension of up to 90 days. If you refuse a chemical breath test you are facing a possibility of up to 270 days of suspension of your privilege to drive. These penalties do multiply significantly for your second, third or subsequent DUI offenses.
The most important factor that determines what happens to your driving privileges is whether or not this is your first or a subsequent alcohol-related offense. The other factor is what alcohol level you registered, whether it was.15 or higher, below .15, or a flat-out refusal of a chemical breath test.
Challenging a DUI License Suspension in Rockville
You have to request a Motor Vehicle Administration hearing through the MVA. Generally speaking, the method of requesting that hearing is on a piece of paper you receive from an officer after your DUI arrest: the Officer’s Certification and Order of Suspension. When you file this request for an MVA hearing, you are preserving your rights to an administrative hearing so that your license can potentially be preserved from suspension. A Rockville MVA hearing lawyer can help you make sure you are filing the right documents to request a hearing, and by the deadline.
There are time limits associated with challenging a suspension. Generally to preserve all your rights, you need to file a request with the Motor Vehicle Administration to challenge the suspension within 10 days of your incident date. You do have some limited rights that extend beyond those 10 days into the 30-day timeframe and beyond. However, to preserve the greatest amount of rights when challenging a suspension, you should file a formal request to challenge within 10 days of your incident date.
There are other ways that a suspension can be challenged also, particularly when it is associated with a refusal of a breath test. A Rockville MVA hearing lawyer can help you identify the basis that you might have had to refuse that breath test, like medical issues, which can be presented to the administrative judge to potentially have the suspension dismissed.
What is most important at an MVA hearing is the breath test, but also whether an officer had reasonable grounds to administer that breath test to you. If the information provided at the MVA hearing is insufficient to support those grounds, usually a dismissal of the request for suspension can be granted.
MVA Hearings in Rockville
You have to go to a hearing to challenge the suspension. The hearing is not the same as a hearing for a typical criminal action. For example, it will not take place in a courtroom. It is going to be an administrative hearing which takes place at the Motor Vehicle Administration in some kind of an office setting.
There will be a judge sitting on one side of the table and a computer screen separating the judge from the defendant. The defendant with his or her MVA hearing attorney will sit on the other side of the table having a conversation with the judge about what took place. The hearings are recorded and they are formal proceedings, but they do not take place in a courtroom setting like where a criminal trial takes place.
Restricted Licenses
There are limited cases in which you can get a restricted license. A restricted license is not offered to people who refused the chemical breath test and it is not offered under any circumstances to people whose chemical breath test registered a .15 or higher. However, there are restricted licenses available for travelling to and from work, school, alcohol or drug education sessions, and medical appointments. These can be granted to people with an alcohol concentration of .08 to .14 if it is their first alcohol-related offense.
A modification of a suspension can be issued for somebody who refused an alcohol concentration test or had an alcohol concentration of .15 or higher, if they participate in the Ignition Interlock program. This is a program where they would have an Ignition Interlock device on their car, which requires blowing into the device to register alcohol content before the car will start, for a period of 12 months.