WIN AT THE DMV!
The Department of Motor Vehicles has a goal: they want to suspend your license. If you are charged in Marin or Napa Counties with a DUI or DWI, call Mark Blair to preserve your license!
Police can seize a driver’s license when they arrest a person for a suspected DUI or DWI. Police then issue the driver a temporary license, also entitled notice of suspension and order of revocation. This license is only valid for 30 days UNLESS, during the first 10 days following its date of issuance, the DMV is contacted and an administrative per se hearing is requested.
If you are charged in Marin or Napa Counties with a DUI or DWI, you must understand how the DMV and its license hearings are set up in order to obtain the best result and keep your driving privileges intact.
In the United States, we pride ourselves on judges being fair and impartial. To preserve a judge’s neutrality, there are some simple principles that must be followed. First, a judge cannot take money from one side or the other as a salary or otherwise. Second, a judge cannot advocate or be the spokesperson of one side or the other.
If you were to walk into a courtroom and discover that the judge were an employee the other side and/or the judge was the other side’s attorney or advocate, you understandably would question how the judge could possibly be fair and impartial to you.
Well, unlike any other judicial forum in the United States, those are exactly the problems with a DMV hearing!
The hearing officer at DMV hearings is not neutral because the hearing officer is receiving a salary from the very organization that is out to suspend your license: the DMV! Equally disturbing, the hearing officer is the advocate of the DMV’s position. That is, if you attend a DMV license hearing, you will notice the conspicuous absence of any attorney for the DMV. In any other court setting, there is a judge (independent and impartial) on the bench and each side typically is represented by an attorney. Except at the DMV. The DMV hearings have no DMV attorneys present, yet they have a representative in the room. The hearing officer is their representative and advocate!
So, unlike any other court setting, not only does the hearing officer work for the other side, the DMV, but the hearing officer is actively promoting the position of the DMV!
But despite these formidable obstacles, there are ways to keep your driving privileges intact! If you are charged with a DUI or DWI in Marin or Napa Counties and wish to have the best outcome possible at a DMV hearing, call Attorney Mark Blair to discuss his strategies!