By Dan Noll on September 19th, 2016 in
When an individual refuses a breathalyzer, a couple of things happen. It’s important at the outside of this video to kind of explain what happens when a person is arrested for driving under the influence. When a person is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, two things happen. Number one, the officer likely will charge them with DUI, and second, there is what they call a statutory summary suspension, that statutory summary suspension affects a person’s driver’s license and their ability to drive. When a person is arrested for DUI, if they give a breath test, their suspension period is shorter than a person who refuses to give a breath test.
The result of this is the secretary of state and from the State of Illinois incentivizing citizens to give breath tests. The reason they want to encourage that is so it makes it easier for the state’s attorney’s office to prosecute DUIs. This was an intentional design done for people to incriminate themselves. Now, when a person refuses the breath test, they are facing a minimum of a one-year suspension. If a person submits to the breath test, they are facing a six-months suspension. Now, that is all assuming that this is a first offender DUI and there’s some other technical areas as well, but in general, when a person refuses that breath test, two things happen.
Number one, their criminal case gets better because the state’s attorney’s office does not have an evidentiary breath test number to show in front of a jury. However, their driver’s license is potentially at higher risk. However, our office has been very successful on DUIs and keeping people driving without any sort of bade device, which is the breathalyzer in your car. If you have been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois, or anywhere else, please give our office a call. We can discuss your case, see what your options are, and be happy to help you out.