Michigan Drunk Driving Miranda Rights

The sixth most successful defense in a drunk driving case would be the suppression of incriminating statements.  Now if you’ve been practicing law for any time at all, you know that the court’s likelihood of actually suppressing a non- Mirandized statement has been becoming increasingly less likely, but the Miranda Law and the Miranda Rights still do apply.  It will be important for you to analyze your client’s case to see if any post-arrest statements were made that are significant in your client’s case.  If they were it may be important to have those statements suppressed.

Let me give you some examples where you might see this in a drunk driving case.  Almost anything that happens at the roadside will be considered to be prior, or pre, before arrest and part of the roadside investigation.  If your client is being asked when they’re looking for their documents, “How much have you had to drink?, and they admit they had a lot to drink, there is no way that Miranda is going to be applied to that because the Miranda only applies to post-arrest statements.  You have to determine when the arrest occurred.  Once the arrest has occurred then you need to determine whether or not the statements that are made, are made in response to police questioning.  If your client happens to just freely disclose on the ride to the police station that they’re drunk, that statement unless it’s a response to a police officer’s question, is going to be admissible.  If it’s not made in response to a police officer’s question, there is no problem.

It’s important to determine if the arrest has occurred and that the statement that’s made is made in response to police questioning.  The next part of the analysis is whether or not it’s a statement that the prosecutor will be using against your client.  In most instances if your able to get a statement suppressed, that’s not going to make the case go away, but it may significantly enhance your chances of success. An incriminating statement such as how much the person has had to drink, or whether or not they feel intoxicated, or whether or not they have consumed other than alcohol, such as drugs, those statements of course can be very harmful to the defense.  If you can get them thrown out, you’d be in much better shape.

If you evaluate the case and find that such statements have been made, it will be important for you to file a motion so that you can have the court make a determination to try and get that statement suppressed before the trial.

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