DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

It is important to understand that the penalties for a DUI are heavily dependent on the circumstances of your arrest. The level of your intoxication, how many DUIs you had in the previous 7-year period, and whether you were pulled over or involved in a crash can all affect the penalties that are imposed.

Not exactly, after 7 years, a conviction, “no contest,” or “guilty” plea do not count towards whether you will be charged with a “First Offense,” “Second Offense,” or “Third Offense.” However, those old convictions will likely still be taken into account when determining your sentencing (or possible plea deals either, for that matter), meaning that you will likely be sentenced to the upper limits of the potential penalties.

The arresting officer will note everything from your demeanor after being pulled over, your compliance with the officer’s requests, and your attitude towards being pulled over or arrested. All of this information will be considered when plea bargains are offered by the prosecutor prior to trial and will be considered by the judge during sentencing if you are subsequently convicted.

Prior DUIs are generally the most important circumstance, but because everyone reacts to intoxication differently, the level of your intoxication is also taken into consideration in most cases.

For example, if you are involved in a minor car crash, and an officer arrives on the scene and determines that your Blood Alcohol Concentration (“BAC”) is found to be 0.16 (twice the legal limit of 0.08), then your potential plea deals and potential sentencing if convicted will likely involve harsher penalties than if your BAC was found to be just barely over the 0.08 limit.

Similarly, if you act belligerently towards the arresting officer, are violent or aggressive towards anyone else throughout the process of your arrest, you are more likely to face harsher penalties and more strict plea deals than if you are docile and comply with all officer requests.

Generally speaking, if an officer suspects that you have been drinking, they will ask you to submit to a breathalyzer. The breathalyzer measures the amount of alcohol on your breath and is generally used as a preliminary test to determine if you need to be tested in a more precise manner.

In other cases, and sometimes in place of the breathalyzer, you will be asked to submit to a blood test so that the actual BAC can be determined. Generally speaking, Nevada Courts will not allow the results of any blood test taken more than 2 hours after you have been pulled over. The Courts recognize that any test taken after that 2 hour time frame do not reflect your BAC at the time you were pulled over.

BAC refers to the concentration of alcohol in your blood stream. The legal limit in Nevada, for persons over the age of 21 is 0.08, which means that 0.08% of your bloodstream is composed of alcohol.

The BAC limits are per se laws, meaning that if you are shown to have a BAC of exactly 0.08, you have violated the law. If your BAC shows as 0.079, you are under the limit.

However, it is extremely important to note that you can still be arrested if your BAC is under the legal limit. In fact, you can be arrested with any amount of alcohol in your system, so long as the alcohol is detectable to the arresting officer.

Technically, yes. However, Nevada maintains what is known as “implied consent,” which means that you are required to submit to BAC testing when requested by a police officer. However, you can request that the testing be done by drawing blood, and skip the breathalyzer. Unfortunately, if you choose to refuse the preliminary breath test (often referred to as a PBT), the officer may – and usually will – suspend your license and arrest you for a DUI.

Please Note: The PBT results are inadmissible in court to show that you were driving under the influence. HOWEVER, the results can be used to show that the officer had “reasonable grounds” to arrest you. Since any alcohol in your system is enough to provide an officer with reasonable grounds to arrest you, as discussed above, the results of a PBT can be used to show that there was alcohol in your system at the time of the arrest, even though it cannot be used as evidence of your exact BAC.

Once you have been taken back to the police station, you will be asked to submit to either an Evidentiary Breath Test or a Blood Test.

Evidentiary Breath Tests are supposedly more sophisticated than the PBT, and therefore expected to be more accurate. Consequently, the results of an Evidentiary Breath Test are admissible in court to show that your BAC was above the legal limit.

You should not refuse to submit to the blood test (also referred to as a “chemical test”). While you are legally allowed to refuse the test, law enforcement is legally permitted to obtain a blood sample to conduct the testing. In other words, the officer may direct that reasonable force be used to the extent necessary to obtain the blood sample. Moreover, should you refuse to submit to the testing, your license will also be suspended for 1 year.

As noted above, the BAC limits are basically nothing more than guidelines, given that you can be arrested with any amount of detectable amount of alcohol in your system, we strongly recommend that if you have had anything to drink (or have consumed any illegal narcotic, prescription medication, or over-the-counter medication that can affect your ability to drive) you refrain from driving altogether.

However, in general, the charts below provides the approx. BAC per-alcoholic drink.