Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

Alright. Lawyer Talk DUI 360 back with another 360 episode. We are taking on topics related to OVI, DUI. Ohio's got OVI. By the way, you can check us out, lawyer talk podcast.com. We're also in the socials, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, everywhere else you would get your social media. We are there, providing you content. The series here is designed to, help people understand, the DUI OVI process, which you can expect.

Steve Palmer [00:00:25]:

There's so many questions about this. It's one of the most complex areas of law as I've explained before. And one of the I I addressed the biggest one of the biggest questions we get is about refusing breath test, urine test, or blood tests, and, you know, I've talked about that in another episode. But now I wanna sort of dig into why and and really what goes on. So in Ohio, and and I think a lot of states or most states are that way, there's really two ways you can be charged with OVI. And I'm using the term OVI because that's what Ohio calls it. The first way is sort of the traditional way, the the way that your your granddad would understand. That means you're just driving a car, operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

Steve Palmer [00:01:03]:

And and generally, that means in Ohio, according to the jury instructions, that you're appreciably impaired, and you shouldn't be driving. That that's and you might imagine what the evidence would be against somebody in that kind of case. It would be, odor of alcohol, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, unsteady on your feet, maybe had to use your car for balance when you, quote, exited your motor vehicle. And then if you didn't listen to one of our other OVI or DUI 360 episodes, then you took field sobriety tests, and you, registered failing clues on all the 3 standard ones, maybe even a couple others that aren't so standard. So now you're charged with unimpaired OVI. That's a the vernacular on high would be that is an impaired OVI. You're operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. In other words, you're impaired and shouldn't be driving.

Steve Palmer [00:01:50]:

That's its own charge. The second way in Ohio you can be charged with OVI is generally called a per se. What does per se mean? It means just you're just not allowed to do it. You're not allowed to drive your car with a prohibited alcohol concentration as determined by by your blood, by your breath, or by your urine. So here's what that means. You could be sober as the day is long or appear sober as the day is long, but if you've got a blood alcohol content, a urine alcohol content, or breath alcohol content that is above the legal limit, most states now are point 08 for adults that are allowed to drink, then that's a crime to drive. And people would say, well, look, I'm totally sober. I felt fine.

Steve Palmer [00:02:31]:

Everything seemed okay to me. It doesn't matter if you have submitted to a blood, breath, or urine test with a with a result that's above the legal limit. It's a crime to drive even if you appear by all objective criteria to be totally sober. Now this brings up the next question. Can I be how can I be charged with 2 different offenses for the same thing? Well, in Ohio, you can be charged with both. You can even be convicted of both, but you can't be sentenced on both, at least not consecutively back to back. So, in Ohio, this this the standards or the punishment mandatory punishment is the same, which on a first offense, the mandatory punishment in Ohio really requires you to do a 3 day program, a license suspension, typically 1 year. For some reasons, it's less, And a fine after court cost and everything else shakes out around 5, $600.

Steve Palmer [00:03:15]:

And the punishment would be the same for both, but they can't make you do it twice. Now typically, what happens, if you're on your own or even a lot of times with lawyers and you go in to just plead guilty to something, they'll dismiss 1 in exchange for a plea or the other. So they don't really go down that rabbit hole of of charging you with both or convicting you with both. Some courts I've been at, though, if you my client is guilty enough, they're gonna require a plea if they can prove it to both. So that's generally not what does all this have to do with taking the test or refusing the test? Well, it's sort of obvious. If you refuse the test, then you don't get the second half. You don't get the the other one. You don't get the per se violation because they don't have that evidence against you.

Steve Palmer [00:03:54]:

And as you might under as you might speculated here or or surmised, it's easier to defend the impaired charge assuming you're not totally wasted on your feet. It's an easier defense to an impaired charge than it would be a per se charge because on the impaired side, the prosecutor, the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you're operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol. On the other side, all they have to prove is that you are operating a car with a prohibited alcohol concentration. It's a it's a it's a lower bar. Now Ohio's got some funky rules about breath tests and what we're allowed to do to challenge breath tests. I'm not gonna go into that, at least not here. That's another DUI 360. Hope you like the content.

Steve Palmer [00:04:31]:

We are coming at you with DUI 360 information regularly. Check us out at lawyertalkpodcast.com. Check us out on the socials. We are Lawyer Talk Off the Record on the Air DUI 360 until now.