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Steve Litz, Indiana DUI Attorney (Interview Transcript)
Richard Jacobs of myDUIattorney.org sits down with Steve Litz, a criminal and DUI defense attorney out of Indiana. A must-read for anyone facing a DUI charge in Morgan County or the state of Indiana.
RJ: What made you chose to handle DUI cases and why do you practice this particular area of law?
SL: Well I’ve been doing criminal defense for coming up on 26 years now and DUI of course is an integral part of it particularly in the county where I am located in Morgan County but across Indiana DUIs are something we encounter pretty much every day. So if you’re going to be doing criminal defense you are going to be doing DUIs. It’s something that is kind of an evolving practice because it’s very easy to have someone who goes out and gets drunk and gets arrested in their vehicle, they go to a lawyer that doesn’t know anything about drunk driving law and a few years later their license is suspended for 10 years and they are wondering what happened. And so it’s really a niche of mine that I’ve really taken a great interest in.
RJ: How many DUI cases do you think you’ve handled and in how long a time period?
SL: Oh gosh, I would say, in the 25/26 years I’ve been practicing I would somewhere between 500 to 1000 DUIs.
RJ: Are there any particular circumstance for the people you are working with? Are there a lot of first-timers, more repeat ones, are there more men than women?
SL: I would say that probably mainly men, although maybe a quarter or so of my clients are women, and it’s probably split down the middle in terms of first timers versus repeat offenders. If someone gets picked up once, and they are not an alcoholic, they are usually scared significantly, but when I see the same clients over and over or even first timers that are testing .20 or higher, then that tells me right away that they have a drinking problem and so one of the things that I try to do when I interview my clients for the first time, I’m always honest and direct with them. I don’t lecture my clients, but I tell them that now’s the time for them to do some serious soul-searching because if they’re an alcoholic and they don’t admit it they’re going to be back to see me and in Indiana the stakes get significantly higher on second and subsequent offences.
RJ: Out of your clients, do a lot of them have a blood alcohol level close to the legal limit, or are there some with a lot higher?
SL: I would say that probably at least twice that. I certainly get people that are right at the limit, .08/.09 and those are the cases that we frequently try actually or at least we get the DUI dismissed or knocked down to something that doesn’t cause them as much harm like a reckless driving or something like that.
My approach to defending drunk driving cases has always been pretty straightforward, you know I examine the police report, we interview the officers, we interview everyone that does the testing, and then I advise my client on whether there are issues that need to be explored further. And if the police have done their job, and the test is accurate and the stop was valid and all of the other things that go into analyzing DUIs were done properly, then I try to work out the best deal I can for my client. I don’t waste my clients’ money. You can pay thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars for DUIs and end up no better than coming to me with a much more reasonable fee of perhaps a couple of thousand dollars maximum for a first-time DUI. So it’s really the analysis of the case that I think is critical in determining how the case is going to be handled.
RJ: Historically what percentage of the cases you have handled have gone to trial versus settling?
SL: Oh I would say that a significantly high percentage of cases end up being plead probably upwards of 90%. You know if you go to trial DUIs are expensive and if a test is done properly – I can cross examine a police officer and make him look silly – but it’s much more difficult to cross examine a machine.
I’m one of the few attorneys in the state that is actually licensed to do the same kind of field sobriety tests that the police give and so I’ve taken very lengthy and detailed courses on field sobriety test analysis, so that is actually a lot of fun for me. I love going to trial, I get more money if we go to trial. But it’s not about me getting more money it’s about me doing what’s in my client’s best interest. And so if I think it’s in my client’s best interest to take the case to trial, if I think we can win, I’ll let him know. The vast majority of cases we end up pleading out.
RJ: Since you mention that you’ve been trained specifically on administering the field sobriety tests, what sorts of insights have you gained into that process? Is it useful or not useful, what have you learned about it the other attorneys, and certainly people being pulled over, wouldn’t know about it?
SL: Well here’s a free piece of legal advice right now: Don’t take them. You don’t have to take them, and they are designed for failure. Field sobriety tests are what is known as ‘dual attention tests’ and so the police officer, while he’s telling my client to pay attention to one thing, he’s asking him to do something else.
And this is something that I talk to jurors about when we go to trial, I ask the jurors: how many of them scored 90% or higher on their math exams when they were in grade school? And virtually everyone raises their hand, and I say: what kind of grade did you get? And they’ll all say: we got an “A”. And I’ll say, what do you think you get if you get a 9 out of 10 on the One Legged Stand test? And they kind of look at me and I tell them, and the police officer will even admit, that they fail. And so these are tests that are designed for failure, nobody should take field sobriety tests, all they do is make the police more likely to arrest you and present a stronger case with the police to keep the case from going to trial. Because I’ve had cops on the witness stand fail to do the test, the same test that they ask my clients to do on the street.
RJ: So how would you refuse one? What words would you use, do you have any suggestion?
SL: Well you don’t have to be nasty, and certainly they can say: Look, my lawyer advised me that I don’t have to take these tests, I don’t feel comfortable taking a DUI test, or a field sobriety test. And one of the great things, at least in my area, is most of the DUI stops are recorded or at least they should be, and so in car cameras are wonderful because they’re great for me and they’re great for the prosecutor as well. If my client tells me that he wasn’t slurring his speech and his eyes weren’t bloodshot and he wasn’t falling over, and we’ve got an in-car camera video well one of two things happens. Either, the in car camera shows that my client is correct and the case goes away, or it shows that he was so wasted that he really has no idea what kind of condition he was in and then we plead him guilty. So they really work, they’re a benefit both ways. It’s when there’s not the in car camera that things become, you know, he said, she said and I never like to go to trial if its just my client’s word against the police officer’s because everyone knows what happens in that situation.
RJ: Can you say what else is unique about the particular laws in your county and the cities that you service?
SL: Well it’s not so much in our county, although the county that I practice in Morgan county is generally known as a very harsh sentencing county for DUIs. For example in Indianapolis where I have done a ton of DUI work. Your first DUI nothing really happens to you, I mean you get a slap on the wrist. In my county, you’ll spend at least a weekend in jail. Your second DUI in Indianapolis, you may do, well if it’s your second DUI in five years it’s automatically a felony you must do at least five consecutive days in jail or some community service and things like that. In this county, you’ll do about 3 weeks, and then if you pick up a third offence, really everything changes dramatically, and this is just the law of Indiana is unbelievably difficult and harsh on third offenders because, first offence – no jail, second offence – maybe a week, third offence – you lose your license for ten years, you’re looking at 3 years in prison, plus 3 to 8 years on top of that for being a habitual substance offender, so you move from virtually no time conceivably, to 11 years in prison. And that’s something that very few people know or are even close to being prepared for.
RJ: What’s your best tip when someone’s just been pulled over and have had one or more drink, what should or shouldn’t they do?
SL: In Indiana, if you refuse to take the breathalyzer then typically what the police do is get a warrant, and draw your blood anyway. So there’s no sense in refusing because all that’s going to do is result in you losing your license for a year mandatory. So you really have to take the test. But that’s all you have to take. You don’t have to tell the police you were drinking, you don’t have to tell the police how much you were drinking, none of that. You can simply say: Officer, my lawyer has told me that I don’t have to answer any questions, I’ll take whatever test you want to give me, and that should be it. And that’s really good advice for any interaction with the police. Easily 95% of my clients convict themselves before the case even gets to me, they try to talk their way out of it, they say: I’ve only had three beers, and then they come back .23 and everyone in the world knows that they’re lying. So you know, the less said, the better. But they do have to take the breath test, or even if the police says: I’m going to take you to the hospital to draw your blood, they have to agree to that.
RJ: So what kinds of help can you provide for people arrested for DUI? You mentioned a couple, like possibly reducing the charge to a reckless, can you help mitigate fines?
SL: Sure. A first offence DUI in Indiana carries up to $5000 and imprisonment for up to a year. Now it would be exceptionally rare for somebody – even if they went into court with no lawyer – would get anything like that. But, I always say, you know when I was in college I had cancer, and I didn’t try to cure my own cancer. It’s absolutely ridiculous for somebody to try to go in and try to represent themselves on a DUI when they’re facing their insurance rates doubling or tripling, when they’re facing the loss of their license, when they’re facing substantial imprisonment. So all of these things are things that at least I know how to handle and how to negotiate with the prosecutors and how to best represent my clients to see that there’s the least harm that comes to them.
RJ: Historically what percentage of success have you had in reducing some or all of these potential penalties for your clients?
SL: Well, what I can tell you is, I’ve never had a DUI case in 26 years where my client got max, and that’s not bragging, that’s just reality. These laws were written to try to seem tough but when it actually comes time to sentencing it would be very rare. You know someone could piss off a judge, that could certainly happen but it would be very rare, unless they have an absolutely atrocious record that they would get maxed out. And so I would say in that in virtually every one of my cases I succeed. Now that success may take the form of winning at trial and having the charges dismissed completely, it may take the form of having a number of other charges that accompany the DUI, because normally people don’t go out, get in a car drunk and just commit a DUI. They may hit a mailbox and run in which case they are fleeing the scene, they may run from a police officer, in which case they are looking at resisting law enforcement so there typically are a variety of charges that accompany the DUI. So that’s another thing, we’re able to get most of those other charges dismissed, we can negotiate the fines downward, as for jail time, frequently we’re able to get our clients placed on home detention instead of serving lengthy terms of imprisonment, so there are all sorts of things that I can do for someone.
RJ: In general is it wise to take a DUI case to trial or to plea, if you have a non-aggravated set of circumstances?
SL: A tough question to answer because it depends on all the various factors that we discussed. It depends on whether the breath test was administered properly, whether the machine operator was certified like he is supposed to be, whether the chain of custody was done correctly, whether the original stop was legal, and so there are all sorts of things that go into evaluating whether or not to take case to trial. So that’s a question that without looking at a specific set of facts I don’t know that I can ever answer whether it is preferable to take a case to trial or not, because there’s various factor specific.
RJ: So what have you learned about people’s behavior and their reaction to being prosecuted for DUI? What kind of insights have you gained into this whole process over all these years?
SL: Well one of the things I’ve learned is that the police really don’t respond too favorably to people saying: Look, my uncle is a state trooper and if you arrest me you’re going to end up going to jail. You generally don’t hear about things like that and you’d be surprised how many times people try to threaten police officers into not arresting them. It doesn’t work. I’ve never in my life seen a cop say: OK, you win. Go ahead home, you can drive drunk even though I know that you’re weaving all over the road.
There are all sorts of kinds of tricks of the trade, and one of the reasons that anyone who is arrested for DUI should hire a lawyer, and hire a lawyer that’s been doing this for a long time, is that it is people like me and many other very good DUI lawyers across the state of Indiana that will know what to look for in evaluating these reports, in talking to police officers, in deposing lab experts and things like that. We know the kinds of things to ask, and the kinds of things to look for that can help our clients.
RJ: Is there a particular story that you keep hearing over and over from your clients?
SL: Well it’s always the same, and the police know it too, it’s: Well I only had three beers tonight.
There is a wheel that I actually have in my drawer, it’s my handy dandy drunk-o-wheel and it gives you a guideline of what somebody’s blood alcohol level probably is if they’ve had a certain amount of drinks to drink over a certain period of time. Everybody’s body metabolizes alcohol at different rates but this gives you a guideline. And so if I get somebody in my office that tested .24 and they said they had 5 beers over 3 hours, I know one of two things: either, the machine is broken, or my client is lying. So that helps me evaluate the case.
But I’ll tell you one story, and it’s about a guy and it’s really astonishing to think that something like this could ever happen. I had a guy whose wife actually worked for the Indiana Supreme Court, and he came to my office for a DUI and I was supposed to meet him here at 9 o’clock, I got to my office a few minutes before that, there was a truck parked out in my parking lot, but nobody was in there. So I waited until about 9:15, walked out to the truck and saw somebody in the truck sleeping. And I kind of knocked on the door and got no response. And then I banged on the window and still didn’t get anything, and I thought: Gee, Jesus this guy is dead.
And in between his legs was an open beer can and a drip from his mouth was some spittle. And so I finally roused this guy and he got up and came into my office. In my briefcase I have a portable breath machine that I’ve used a hundred times and I gave it to my client. My client tested .41 in my office. For most people, .20 would be falling down drunk and ungodly sick. .30, if you can even get there, in most cases is toxic. And my guy was driving at .40. So I called his wife, and I said: Look, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve never had anyone arrested at my office but your husband is not leaving my office. So she came and got him, took him to the hospital and we ended up working out that case to nobody’s surprise. He was just a horrific alcoholic, but again, I’ve had brain surgeons that have operated on people at .15 and so if you are a chronic alcoholic, you can be as they call it, walking drunk, and appear perfectly fine. So there are all sorts of interesting stories that you come across after you’ve been doing this for a while.
RJ: So do you feel that the current DUI punishments are too harsh, are they too lax and why do you feel that way?
SL: Well as you can tell from my answer to the earlier question, I don’t have a problem with somebody going to jail if they were driving drunk and the police did their job. I think the people need a taste of it to see what’s going to happen if they keep doing it. What I do have a problem with is a police officer who says that they saw a tail light out when my clients tail lights were working fine and the only reason they say that is because they followed him after he left the liquor store, and then they stop him, and they test him, and he tested over the limit. Then we fight like hell. Because if the police stop somebody, and they’re not entitled to, my client will walk. That’s something that I promise my clients, that I will do everything I can to make sure that if it’s a bad stop, the case will go away.
RJ: What do you see as the future of DUI law, do you think it will get harsher or stay the same?
SL: You know DUIs have kind of leveled out over time. There used to be a period of time when they were increasing significantly at least in my state, the laws seem to be doing the trick and so I don’t anticipate the laws getting harsher. Certainly they won’t get any easier. I mean no politician who wants to keep office is going to make the penalty less severe for DUIs. But I think the status quo will probably remain as it is. There might be certain quirks and laws here and there, we’ve had to tweak our laws a bit over time, but I think that the DUI laws are fairly settled at this point and I wouldn’t expect any radical changes.
RJ: What makes your firm unique and what personal statement do you want to make to potential clients reading this and considering hiring you?
SL: Well, I think what makes my practice unique is my honesty with my clients and it’s not just in DUI cases. I represent clients charged with stealing a candy bar from Kroger to murder and I am always direct and up front with my clients. If I think that they ought to take a plea, I will let them know about it and I’ll lean on them if I think that they’re making the wrong choice. Ultimately, it’s their decision. They’re the ones that are facing the consequences, and they’re the ones that are paying the money. But I never sugarcoat things with my clients and I have a reputation in this county and state-wide of fighting very hard for my clients. I’ve been fortunate enough in my practice to have a lot of nice publicity and nice press written about me, and so one of the things that the media has come to learn is that there’s nobody around that fights as hard for their clients as I do. And that would really be my mission statement I suppose is if you want someone who’s going to charge you a fortune then they don’t need to come to me. If they want someone who’s going to roll over and have them sign a plea agreement as soon as they walk in the door, then they don’t need to come to me. If they want someone who’s going to put a quarter century worth of experience to work for them and charge them a reasonable fee, so that when they are done with the case they know that they got their money’s worth, then they should give me a call.
Watch Steve Litz Video Interview HERE >>