Lisa Pelosi: For first time offenders charged with driving while intoxicated, your goal for that client is to try to get the case completely dismissed based on errors made by the police department. The next level of counseling would be to try to get them unimpaired so that they can get on with their life and not have a record for driving while intoxicated. Unimpaired will be considered a violation and wouldn’t have any repercussions for their career or lives.
There Is a Lower Percentage of Repeat DWI Offenders in New York
Interviewer: What’s the percentage of first time offenses becoming second time or third time offenses, do you think in a way that’s usually a pattern or is it something that they had learned their lessons and they never do it again?
Lisa Pelosi: It varies from person to person. Some people I’ve dealt with as clients have had two and three and four drunken driving arrests. Others have one and they’ll never do it again. The system has worked in that they don’t repeat.
A Sentence of Probation Is Not a Preferred Outcome for a DWI Case
Interviewer: At what point or what are the probation comes into play?
Lisa Pelosi: The goal is you would try to keep someone off of probation and off of jail and try to just get them a fine. Sometimes they have to go to a short program which highlights the dangers of drunk drinking and driving and there’s no real need to have someone to be put on probation who functions fine in society and who just made one mistake.
Common Mistakes Committed that End up Hurting the DWI Case
Interviewer: What are the common mistakes that people make when they get arrested that makes it harder to work with our case?
Lisa Pelosi: Not taking the breathalyzer test and also making a statement. It’s probably better off the second an officer stops you to just be cooperative and give your name and any pedigree information that’s requested of you. At that point to immediately ask for an attorney and to call the attorney immediately before you make any statements.
They generally will ask you what if anything you’ve had to drink and it’s probably just better at that point to say, “I want my attorney.”
Role of Miranda Rights in the New York DWI Process
Interviewer: When and how do Miranda rights come into play?
Lisa Pelosi: A lot of times, they don’t give you the Miranda warning till after they have passed certain statements because they’ll say that the statements that they’re asking you are the questions that they’re asking you or to just get pedigree information and to get your side of the story and then subsequent to that then they will give you the Miranda warnings but they’ve already asked you questions that they shouldn’t have asked.
As I’ve already said that the ideal situation is once you’re stopped to immediately say you want to call your attorney before you make any statement.
The Remedy for a Statement Taken Without Miranda Is to Get the Statement Precluded, Not to Dismiss the Case
Interviewer: Do you ever imply to think that because they weren’t read their Miranda rights that their cases going to get dismissed?
Lisa Pelosi: Yes, that’s a very big misconception, but for those people who do the kind of work we do, the Miranda is only relative to the statement that’s given. The remedy for a statement that’s taken without Miranda isn’t to dismiss the whole case, it’s just for your attorney to try to get the statement precluded from being used at trial.
