What To Do When Stopped For A DWI In Texas?

This is really a great question and there are a lot of things to talk about on this. The main thing is don’t answer any questions. That’s the first mistake most people make and that is the biggest mistake. There’s a kind of a joke— our clients have the right to remain silent, but very few have the ability.

So, when you get pulled over for an investigation of DWI, one of the first things that happens is the officer starts asking you questions. The first thing you should do is say, “I invoke my right to remain silent.” That cannot be used against you. That cannot make your situation any worse.

The mistake that a lot of people make is— they answer questions. The officer asks, “Have you been drinking?” The person says, “Well, yeah, I’ve had a couple of drinks.” From that point forward, their situation has been made worse because now the officer has no question that they have alcohol in their system. They’ve admitted it, so that is used against them.

Likely, it’s going to lead to further detention, requests for field sobriety tests, and so on. So, if you don’t answer that question, then the officer can’t use any answer against you. The officer may not have evidence that you’ve been drinking.

Sometimes, they think they smell alcohol, sometimes they don’t, they just ask the question. They may think that, at that point, “I don’t really smell alcohol, they haven’t admitted having anything to drink, so I don’t know if I have any further reason to detain the person.”

The next thing that can happen is the officer may ask you to step out of the car. Now at this point, you need to obey the officer’s direction that you step out of the car.

The next thing that’s going to happen, likely, is the officer’s going to ask you to perform some field sobriety tests. For instance, the horizontal gaze and nystagmus, where they have you follow the pin or finger, or the walk-the-line test, or the stand-on-one-leg test. Now, you should probably refuse to do those tests because nobody passes those tests.

Here’s a little secret. All the officers who do the training to learn how to give those tests to people on the side of the road, fail the test when they do it for the first time. Everybody does unless they’ve practiced it before. So, you’re not going to do well on those tests, and there’s going to be a lot of things that happen that the officer is going to use against you. The best thing to do is to refuse to perform those field sobriety tests.

Now, here’s a little secret tip that most people wouldn’t think of. You might say, “Officer, I’ll take a portable breath test right now.” I wouldn’t recommend that you do that if you’ve had too much to drink. But if you’ve been responsible, you’ve only had a couple of drinks with dinner at the restaurant then you’re likely not intoxicated. You likely have not consumed enough to be over 0.8% or do not have the normal use of mental or physical faculties. So, you can say, “Officer, I’ll take a portable breath test right now.”

Here’s the interesting thing about that— most officers don’t have the portal breath test, so they won’t be able to give it to you. Even if they give it to you and you fail it, the result can’t be used against you in a court of law. But if the result is low, it’s below the legal limit, then that may be used in your favor to be released at the scene. The officer probably won’t give it to you, but even if it does, it may help and in the long run can’t hurt you.

If the result is over 0.8%, the officer may use that as a reason to arrest you, but at that point, he was probably going to arrest you anyway. But you could also say, “Well, officer, am I free to go?” An officer will probably say, “No, I’m detaining you for investigation,” or maybe at that point they place you under arrest.

Once they place you under arrest, do not consent to a breath test or blood test. Breath tests are wildly inaccurate and you can fail those tests even when you’re not intoxicated or over the legal limit.

Blood tests are quite often wrong. There’s a lot of mistakes that can be made in blood testing. There’s a lot of reasons why the tests aren’t reliable and we can attack those blood tests as being unreliable. So, refuse the blood test.

The officer may get a warrant to have your blood drawn, but if they get a warrant, quite often that warrant is legally insufficient. It is based on an affidavit that doesn’t sufficiently state probable cause within the four corners of that affidavit.

Quite often, that blood test can be attacked because it’s based on an illegally issued warrant, so the result can’t be used against you. But, if you consent to the blood test, they can use it against you no matter what. Those are some of the best tips for what to do if you’re detained or stopped for driving while intoxicated in Texas.

Summary

If stopped for a DWI in Texas, it’s crucial to remain silent and avoid answering questions. When asked to step out of the car, comply but refuse field sobriety tests, as they’re notoriously hard to pass.

Instead, you might offer to take a portable breath test if you haven’t had much to drink. However, don’t consent to breath or blood tests, as they’re often inaccurate. Following these steps can protect your rights and weaken the case against you.