DUI Lawyer Mississauga

DUI Lawyer Mississauga

DUI Lawyer Mississauga: Never plead guilty to a DUI (Impaired Driving Charge)

The following was created by practicing and former criminal defence lawyers with a wealth of experience in successfully representing people that were charged with impaired driving.

If you are charged with an impaired driving charge for the first time and you plead guilty, you will likely receive a one-yeardriving prohibition and a fine of about $1,300. The most important consequence though is a criminal record (presumptively for life). If you do not plead guilty and instead you are found guilty by a court, you would receive the same sanction. Accused people are entitled to run a trial and with impaired driving charges there is no penalty for doing so. Therefore, there is no incentive to plead guilty to an impaired driving charge.

Avoiding a criminal record should be the primary concern of anyone charged with an impaired driving matter for the first time.  Unlike many offences in the Criminal Code, impaired driving matters have mandatory minimums. With most other summary offences in the criminal code, if you are charged for the first time, the standard sanction would be probation followed by a discharge. This means that most people charged with summary criminal offences will not be left with a criminal record.

Impaired driving matters are an exception and if you plead guilty you will have a criminal record.  However, there are many ways you can avoid a record for an impaired if you have an experienced lawyer.

1. The ideal way to avoid a criminal record is if your lawyer convinces the crown that there is no realistic prospect of conviction.  If this is achieved, the crown has a duty to withdraw your charges.

2.  The second-best case scenario would be if your lawyer could convince the crown to allow you to plead to a lesser included offence in exchange for a withdraw of the impaired charges. If the crown allows you to plead to dangerous operation of a motor vehicle or public nuisance for example, there are no mandatory minimums for these charges and therefore you could go through a term of probation and then have the matter wiped off of your record (discharged).

Charter Rights 

Delay: The courts and crowns throughout Canada have had a backlog ever since the covid 19 pandemic.  This, married with the fact that pursuant to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, everyone in Canada is entitled to a trial without unreasonable delay, means in some circumstances an accused could get their matter withdrawn or acquitted on the basis of delay alone.

However, an accused person can only rely on a delay argument if they have not caused delay in hiring a lawyer.  For this reason,it is important to hire a lawyer as soon as possible after you are charged.

Upon arrest, accused people have many rights pursuant to the Charter including the right to counsel without delay. It is important to exercise this right immediately, because the lawyer’s advice could mean the difference between you getting a criminal record or not.

Accused people are also entitled to be free from an unreasonable arrest or detention. If the police do not have reasonable and probable grounds at every stage of your arrest and detention, the lawyer could argue that this violation means that any evidence that was obtained should be ruled inadmissible in court. If this argument is applied to your breath sample at the police station for example, the police would have little or no admissible evidence to form the basis of an impaired charge.

Disclosure

DUI Lawyer Mississauga: Whenever you are charged with a criminal offence in Canada, you are entitled to disclosure. Disclosure is the material that the crown has that they intend to use against you and other information that you may be able to use for your defence. For example, the crown has to provide documentation regarding the functioning of the machine that they relied on to measure your blood alcohol concentration (BAC). If the defence can demonstrate that the crown cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that the machine was properly calibrated and administered by a properly certified data master technician, then this should result in a withdraw or acquittal.

Accused people are entitled to much more disclosure than that described above. You are entitled to any audio that exists, including dispatch or 9-11 audio’s as well as any audio or videos from the police station. You are also entitled to witness statements and all police notes.

Proof of essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt

The burden is on the crown to prove all of the essential elements of the offence.  Most obvious, the crown has to prove that the accused person was impaired while they were operating a motor vehicle. Sometimes the police encounter the accused when they are not operating a motor vehicle. One or more of the following arguments may be available in these circumstances.

Emergency circumstances

Although the defence of emergency circumstances is a rarely available defence, in some circumstances, the law will allow impaired operations in circumstances of emergency.

Care and Control Cases

In some circumstances, the police discover an accused person in their vehicle but the vehicle is not in motion.  A defence lawyer may argue that the crown cannot prove that the accused was actually operating the vehicle, and did not intend to and also that there was no risk that the vehicle would have inadvertently been set into motion.  The accused may have been avoiding the weather, or for another reason, intended to remain in their vehicle until they were sober for example.

Refusal of a breath demand

DUI Lawyer Mississauga: All other things equal, the sanction for a refusal is generally harsher than the sanction for impaired operation or impaired during care and control. Also, it is sometimes easier to beat an impaired charge than it is to beat a refusal. Therefore, it is always better to attempt to provide a sample if a legal request is made.  For example, the police do not have to prove that you were impaired if you refuse. They do not need to prove that you were operating your vehicle at the time you were impaired and they do not need to prove that the breath machine was properly administered by a properly certified breath technician.

If you are charged with a refusal however, there are several ways that our lawyers have successfully beat refusal charges including but not limited to the following.

Second or subsequent offences

Although a first offence carries a minimum driving prohibition, fine and criminal record, a second offence carries a minimum punishment of 30 days in jail. There are ways to avoid jail time however with an experienced lawyer. In addition to pleading to a lesser included offence, as we described above, there are the following additional options.

Hiring a lawyer

DUI Lawyer Mississauga: It is very important that if you are accused of impaired driving, you call an experienced lawyer immediately. Each of our lawyers have at least ten years of experience in successfully addressing impaired driving charges, care and control charges and refusals. We are available 24/7 to offer a free consultation.

When you retain a lawyer, it is important that they step on the record. This means that they tell the crown and the court that they are retained to represent you until the matters are complete. For this reason, a good lawyer is going to seek a retainer so that they know they will be compensated for their time if the matter goes to trial for example. However, the money that you pay as a retainer is held in trust until your matter is resolved. If your matter resolved without a trial, you are only billed for the time that your lawyer invoices and the remainder will be returned to you. The retainer fee for a good and experienced lawyer is usually about $6,500 plus taxes.

Feel free to call us today.

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