The US and Pennsylvania Constitutions protect your right to remain silent and not incriminate yourself. And if an arresting officer has read you your rights, your silence cannot be used against you in court.
Tell the officer you've made the choice to remain silent. This is not an excuse to be rude or disrespectful. Be polite. Be respectful. But by all mains – be quiet! Aside from providing the officer ID information and showing them your driver's license, you don't have to answer any questions relating to why you were stopped.
The police officer has the right to expect you to identify yourself if he stopped you based on his or her reasonable suspicion. Police officers receive education during which they must recite adequate information to support their decision to arrest a suspect. This training has led to officers repeating a litany of these common signs of intoxication so that the officer can survive a pre-trial motion to suppress challenging an arrest decision that lacked proper justification. A good defense attorney will argue lack of clear evidence of intoxication if these symptoms are missing.
Remember the officer wants to hear your speech patterns to determine if your speech is slurred, thick-tongued, disorganized or otherwise impaired sounding. Certain drugs will cause similar speech patterns. If an officer can address any possible excuses for such signs during the first part of his conversation with you, you probably won't be able to explain your errant driving or unusual speech patterns when the case goes to trial. Again – REMAIN SILENT!
If you or a loved one has been arrested for DUI in Dauphin, Cumberland or York county contact the Quinlan Law Group today. Consultations are always free and we take pride in helping good people through tough times.