Two important DUI cases WITH DEFECTIVE IMPLIED CONSENT WARNINGS

A quality DUI lawyer in Georgia will always seek to review your DUI arrest video. The next case demonstrates how valuable that can be. In State v. Sauls, 293 Ga. 165, 744 S.E. 2d 735 (2015), the GA Supreme Court decided that the arresting officer’s failure to inform Sauls that the test refusal could be used against him in a criminal proceeding failed to comply with Georgia law. This essential part of the advisement was not “fair game” to omit or flub, as has been allowed in some recent Georgia DUI appeals. The high court in Georgia ruled that this OMISSON of one important sentence rendered the implied consent notice legally incorrect.Following the same “theme” at the Georgia Court of Appeals in Wallace v. State, 325 Ga. App. 142, 751 S.E. 2d 887 (2015), that intermediate-level appellate court ruled that a law enforcement officer’s statement to a driver in custody that a “yes” or “no” reply to the officer’s request for a breath test could be used against Wallace when the case came up in court was an incorrect, misleading and deficient advisement. This misstatement altered the substance of the implied consent notice and could have encouraged the detained man to act in a manner that he might not have acted, except for the misleading, additional statement. Wallace’s DUI attorney challenged this defective implied consent warning AND WON. Your response CAN and is used against you in your Georgia DUI trial.