OUI/DUI Defense

In Massachusetts, it is not illegal to consume alcohol and drive a car. It only becomes a crime once the alcohol has reduced your ability to drive the car in a safe manner. Showing reasonable doubt within that distinction is where drunk driving defense attorneys win their cases. Attorney Chin has successfully litigated hundreds of OUI cases during his career as a prosecutor and defense attorney. 

A drunk driving charge could carry significant life-altering penalties. In addition to criminal consequences, the Massachusetts RMV could suspend your license long before your criminal case goes to trial. Refusal to submit to a chemical breath test at the police station will expand the duration of that license suspension. In addition, certain types of convictions require you to pay a significant amount of fees to the government for processing your case. It is critical to have an attorney on your side who has extensive experience with OUI negotiations, and a knowledge of any non-criminal penalty implications that can influence your daily life. 

We will file suppression motions to compel the government to prove that the car stop, any demands to exit your car, and any search of your vehicle were each conducted in a constitutional manner. Attorney Chin assists clients in exploring whether the government plans to use your own statements from your arrest as evidence against you. Specifically, the police may have been interrogating you roadside without advising you of your right to remain silent. In addition, the government has to prove that your statements were made knowingly and voluntarily, which is difficult when they are simultaneously arguing that you are too drunk to drive. 

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Our drunk driving representation will examine each piece of evidence showing how you were treated during the booking process. Massachusetts General Laws Ch. 263 sec. 5A affords certain rights to every person arrested for OUI. Your rights include being read your Miranda warnings, your right to medical assistance, any license loss implications for refusing a breath test, and many other statutory considerations. If the police did not scrupulously comply with their internal protocol and/or offer you all of your arrest rights in a clear and understandable manner, then we will fight to have your case dismissed on procedural grounds. 

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If we decide to take your case to trial, Attorney Chin will aggressively argue that the government cannot prove that you were too intoxicated to drive. We will challenge the arresting officers to show that they complied with their training and conducted any field sobriety tests in a fair and objective manner. Also, we will compel them to acknowledge all of the evidence that shows that you were sober enough to drive. On some occasions, there may be circumstances where the government lacks evidence that you were actually driving the car or that you didn’t drive on a publicly accessible road. 

An experienced OUI defense attorney is adept at negotiating in a way that protects your driving record. In addition to obtaining the best possible outcome on criminal charges, Attorney Chin will work to eliminate any civil motor vehicle infractions from your case. While those violations don’t carry any criminal penalty,  a “responsible” finding might create additional headaches with the RMV and your insurance carrier. 

OUI-drugs case analysis

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The charge of operating under the influence of drugs (Mass. General Laws Chap. 90 sec. 24) is becoming more commonplace, and it requires a different legal defense analysis than the more traditional OUI-liquor charge. With cases where the government accuses you of being under the influence of drugs while driving, the government’s lawyers must utilize an expert witness who is supposed to be trained in identifying symptoms of recent drug use and the effects that specific drugs have on mental acuity and physical responsiveness. At trial, ordinary non-expert officers cannot make legal conclusions about a driver being under the influence of drugs. Comm. v. Gerhardt, 477 Mass. 775 (2017). Normally, patrol officers receive formal training on OUI-liquor investigations, but not for detecting symptoms of drug use. Attorney Chin is skilled at addressing these critical distinctions in OUI cases, and has years of experience arguing about reasonable doubt within OUI-drugs cases.

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