A DUI is a serious offense in Oklahoma, but a DUI attorney in Oklahoma City can often help you to get your charges reduced. The details will depend on the specific attorney you choose as well as the specifics of your case, but one thing is always true: your chances are much better with a lawyer than without.

How Can a DUI Attorney in Oklahoma City Help Reduce Your Charges?

Obviously, the best outcome will be if your lawyer is able to get the charges dropped completely. While that could happen, if you know you were driving impaired and were caught outright, the chances aren’t great. In that case, what your lawyer will concentrate on is getting the charges or their consequences reduced for you.

Fortunately, your lawyer is aware that those who handle these cases, from the police to the prosecutor’s office, can make mistakes. Exposing these mistakes is often what helps you beat a charge or at least get charges reduced or consequences lowered. Here’s some of what you can expect a good lawyer like those at jpcannonlawfirm.com to look at:

Investigating Your Arrest

The very first thing to do is to look at whether the law was properly followed in your arrest. If your vehicle was pulled over for a reason the law does not allow or if the officer did not follow proper procedure during the arrest or during the testing, you could potentially even get the charges dismissed entirely. At the very least, even some minor mistakes here may go a long way to help you avoid the worst possible consequences, so your lawyer will dig deep.

Flaws in Chemical Tests

Chemical tests used in DUI cases are often presented as if they are utterly in fallible, but a good DUI lawyer knows that’s simply not true. Breathalyzers, for example, must be properly maintained and regularly calibrated to be accurate. Law-enforcement must maintain records of this maintenance and calibration, and your lawyer will take a look at these to see if there are any holes. Further, blood alcohol content rises as time goes by, so if a blood test was taken too long after your arrest, it’s likely going to show a much higher BAC than you actually had when you were driving, and it’s possible you were under the legal limit at the time.

Other Possible Defenses

In Oklahoma, there’s a specific charge that can be made if you were in a vehicle and had control of it, even if you were not driving. In most cases, the police will assume that you were driving a vehicle even if they found you in the passenger seat or the backseat. Things can get a little bit muddy here, and if there’s any way to show that you were simply sleeping off the effects of your drinks, the charges may be reduced.

Your attorney may also explore whether you were under the influence of any legal prescription drugs and unaware of the effects that it might have. If you were not told what effects to expect or if you were not told about possible interactions with other drugs or an amplifying effect that the drug might have on even minor alcohol consumption, this can be a good defense.

These are just some of the ways your lawyer may be able to help. The key to the best outcome is ​connected with an experienced defense attorney as soon as possible.