The choices you make in the first minutes of an OVI stop can shape the entire case. Knowing these common mistakes helps you protect your rights and your defense.
The mistakes people make right after an OVI stop are common, avoidable, and can make a charge more likely and harder to fight. Here are the ones we see most often.
Anything you say during a stop can affect your case. Even if you pass a breath test and come in under the limit, admitting you had a drink can give the officer a reason to keep testing or to charge you with an OVI. Politely use your right to remain silent and let the officer know you would rather not answer questions.
From the traffic stop until you leave the station or jail, assume you are being recorded, including in the patrol car, at the station, and on phone calls to arrange a ride. Avoid anything that could sound incriminating. Protecting your rights from the first minute matters.
A few people are released after roadside sobriety tests, but that is rare. The tests exist to gather evidence against you, and despite what officers and prosecutors say, they are often set up in a way that is very hard to pass.
They are usually run in poor conditions, on the shoulder of a dark road with traffic going by, under stress that makes instructions hard to follow. The result is video that shows you looking unsteady or off-instruction, which then supports the charge. You are within your rights to politely decline these tests.
At a pretrial, your attorney negotiates with the prosecutor to resolve, reduce, or dismiss the charge. Prosecutors often ask the arresting officer for input, and an officer who felt disrespected at the stop is less likely to support a favorable deal.
Staying respectful at the stop can matter later. Even when you exercise your right to remain silent or decline tests, do it politely. It helps keep your options open.
Many people underestimate how serious driving on a suspended license is and slip back into old habits. Continuing to drive, or drinking and driving after an OVI arrest, raises your visibility to police and can quickly make you a target for more charges.
Driving under an OVI suspension adds a new criminal charge with mandatory jail time and makes resolving the original OVI harder. Protect yourself: request driving privileges as soon as you are eligible, keep the court order granting them with you at all times, and follow every condition exactly.
Representing yourself in an OVI case raises the odds of a conviction and of higher fines, more jail time, harsher penalties, and a sharp jump in insurance rates. An experienced OVI attorney can make the difference, improving your chances of a fair result and, in some cases, a reduction or dismissal of the charge.
You may be wondering whether to take the breath test after an OVI arrest. This is about the evidentiary breath test at the station, not the portable roadside test, which is generally unreliable, inadmissible in court, and best refused like the other roadside tests.
The evidentiary test at the station is a harder call. Refusing was once the common advice, but under current Ohio law a refusal can itself lead to an OVI in some situations. Several things factor in: whether you have been drinking, how much, how high your result is likely to be, whether you hold a Commercial Driver's License (CDL), and whether you have a prior OVI within the last 20 years.
As a general guide, and not legal advice, refusal may make sense on a first OVI if you have been drinking, while taking the test may help if you have a prior OVI. Every case is different, so talk to an attorney before you decide.
Police are asking for urine tests more and more, especially now that medical and recreational marijuana are legal. Many agree to the urine test to show they have not been drinking, that they have not used marijuana recently, or in the belief that a medical marijuana card protects them from an OVI. That is not how the law works. Instead, if they detect a sufficient level of THC metabolites that is an OVI. The State does not have to prove impairment, only that you operated (moved) a vehicle with THC metabolites over the legal limit. That is the troubling part: those metabolites do not track impairment. You may have used marijuana legally days or even weeks earlier and still test over the limit. We cannot give personal legal advice here, but we cannot think of a reason someone who uses marijuana, even occasionally, would be better off giving a urine sample.
