Michael Tillotson, Virginia DUI Attorney (Interview Transcript):

 

Richard Jacobs from myDUIAttorney.org sits down with Michael Tillotson, a Virginia DUI Attorney, who wrote the book called “Virginia DUI Law: Understanding the scientific, medical and technological, and legal aspects of a DUI case.” Mr. Tillotson is a highly esteemed DUI attorney in his state. A must-read for anyone facing a DUI charge in the state of Virginia, or anywhere in the United States.

 

RJ: Thank you for joining me today, Mr. Tillotson. First question is, what made you choose to handle DUI cases, why do you practice this area of law?

 

MT: Well, that’s kind of an involved question really, but I started practicing 20 years ago and worked in a corporate law firm with 90 attorneys for two years handling business litigation and I was very unhappy doing that. I always thought of myself as going to law school to help people so when I went into private practice after about two years on my own, I started doing criminal cases and personal injury cases. Through the years, I guess it was around 1998, is when I attended my first DUI seminar out in Las Vegas, a national DUI seminar. So I’d been practicing for about 8 years handling DUI cases, and I realized after attending that first DUI seminar in Vegas, through the National College for DUI Defense, which I’m proud to be a member of and the state delegate for. When I attended that seminar I realized that I had no idea what I was doing in a DUI case.

 

DUI cases are very complicated. You’re dealing a lot with science, with medical issues, and it’s truly an area where innocent people can be convicted and the consequences are just so severe. It’s an area that’s very political and so the state is very eager to convict and they use machinery, the breath test machines that can be so variable and can give false results on people, but yet they want to make it sound like these things are perfect. So for me coming from a background that wanted to help people this was an area where I could help some people who were innocent fighting against the state that really wanted to convict them and wasn’t concerned with false results and injustices and things like that. And I know this is a long answer, I said it was, but one other thing is that the constitutional protections given to all of us, there’s no other area of law, where those protections are being eroded as they are in DUI cases and that’s a whole lengthy discussion but suffice it say that my colleagues in the National College have inspired me to try to be the very best attorney that I can be and I can do that representing those citizens that are accused of driving under the influence of alcohol.

 

RJ: So since you started, how many DUI cases have you handled?

 

MT: Well, I probably average between 100-150 I guess at some of the high points. I take less cases now because I know how to do them better and they take a lot more time and I’ve raised my fees so, I would say it’s probably in ten years, probably close to 1,200 or so cases.

 

RJ: Well it’s good you are focusing on quality and not just getting them in there like an assembly line.

 

MT: Yes. We put a lot of time into each case and I wouldn’t be able to do more than 2 cases or so a week, which is still a lot for what we do.

 

RJ: Is there any particular circumstance of the people that come to you for help, are there more first time offenders than repeats, are there more men than women?

 

MT: Obviously there are more first time offenders than repeat offenders. Thank goodness most people learn their lesson after the first time, but we do get repeat offenders. As far as men, women, I think probably men more so than women. But really we get people who call our office, we have four lawyers, so we do make our prices affordable for everyone who gets a DUI, pretty much everybody. And it runs the gamut, we get students, we get professionals, business executives, military officers, police officers, firemen, truck drivers, we get people from all walks of life and a lot of them, their whole career is at stake and that’s who we represent.

 

RJ: Now a lot of the people you represent do a lot of them come close to that .08 limit or are a significant number a lot higher?

 

MT: You know I don’t think I could put a percentage on what number of cases are at an .08 versus at a higher level. I think they pretty much run the board between .08s and .15’s, it’s pretty spread out percentage wise.

 

RJ: What would you say is unique about DUI law in Virginia and also the particular cities and counties that you work in?

 

MT: Well, I don’t know necessarily that our laws are unique versus other states. States are becoming more and more uniform in their laws as time goes on. I mean we do have different punishments than other states; in Virginia, it’s a one year’s loss of license, we don’t have any probation before judgment like what they did in Maryland, or a 3 month loss of license like I believe they do in Wisconsin. So Virginia’s considered one of the tougher states as far as punishment. And as far as jurisdictionally, pretty consistent across the board what judges do, apart with restricted licenses, judges vary on how much they want to give as far as restrictions on a license.

 

RJ: What would be your best tip for someone who’s in the process of being pulled over and they’ve had one or more drinks, what should and shouldn’t they do?

 

MT: Well first of all, always be polite and courteous to the police officer. The police officers are doing their job, they’re protecting the community. Asserting your constitutional rights is not going to get you in trouble, but being rude or belligerent can get you in trouble. The second thing is to know your rights. All you have to do is provide your driver’s license and your basic information. You do not have to do any field sobriety tests. These field sobriety tests are designed in a way that it’s difficult to do them and any mis-stumble, misstep, the cop is going to write it down and testify to it in a way that’s going to make you sound like you’re impaired by alcohol. I would politely decline field sobriety tests, I would politely decline the preliminary breath test out in the field, unless you absolutely know you haven’t had anything to drink, or you absolutely know you had just one or something like that. Now if you are arrested, you are required to take the test down at the station and if you don’t you can lose your license for not doing so and potentially go to jail on secondary, or more offenses.

RJ: So the most important distinction I heard is that you are not required to take the preliminary breath test, but once you’re at the station after being arrested you should?

 

MT: You are required under the law to take the test at the station, correct.

 

RJ: What kinds of help can you provide to your clients? Can you help reduce their time in jail, or fines, or possibly get their charges knocked down?

 

MT: My goal for every case that comes into this office either with myself or with our other attorneys – our goal is to get you out of the charge. We look for every way possible to try to avoid a DUI conviction because they can be devastating. Obviously that’s not possible with every case so if we can’t get you out of it completely we’re going to try to reduce the consequences, either avoiding jail time, mostly it’s jail time that’s the major consequence – other than that the penalties are pretty standard.

 

RJ: So what percentage of success have you had with your clients – is it a lot of time you can get something reduced?

MT: I always get asked that question so I started keeping track about two years ago. Right now I’m at 70% of all cases that come in here, actually it’s a little above 70%, I’m able to get some kind of reduction in their DUI charge. So that includes high BACs where there’s mandatory jail time, getting those knocked down, second offences to firsts, or DUIs to reckless or not guilty. If it’s simply a matter of getting rid of other charges but the DUI is still charged, I don’t count that. So my record is above 70% which I think is pretty phenomenal.

 

RJ: That’s very high, definitely a majority. Is it wise to take a DUI case to trial, or is it better to do a plea-bargain before hand when there’s a non-aggravated set of circumstances?

 

MT: That kind of question depends totally on the facts of the specific case. In most cases I would say our judges do not penalize people for going to trial, however, if there’s some aggravating factors involved, you could be putting your client at risk of more jail time, more serious consequences than what you might get if you plead. But if it’s generally a first-offence DUI with no aggravating factors, there’s no reason – unless they’re going to reduce it to a reckless or something – there’s no reason not to go to trial. There are some cases that I don’t have a defense for. But most of the time I do have defenses one way or another – I find things, that there are defensible issues in the case.

 

RJ: What have you learned about people’s reaction in relation to DUI? What insights have you gained?

 

MT: Well probably the number one thing, when they’re arrested for the first time, they’re scared. Most people are scared when blue lights go on behind them when they’re driving, they’re scared when they get pulled out of the vehicle and have to do these field sobriety tests, they’re very nervous, then they get put in jail for the first time ever, spending the night in jail, they come out of it worried about the consequences it’s going to have on the rest of their lives. So that’s the number one thing is people are truly scared.

 

The second thing that I would say is that most people believe that they are not purposefully committing a crime. They feel that they’ve waited long enough and that they’re OK. And there are two reasons, and this is probably going beyond your question but there are two reasons why people – responsible people – would end up with a DUI. 1) They don’t realize how slowly alcohol eliminates from their system. They think that by waiting a couple of hours they’ll be OK and that’s simply not true. 2) There’s a thing called the Mellanby Effect – once you start drinking alcohol, you start feeling the effects of the alcohol on your way up, once you’re on your way down, you don’t feel the effects of the alcohol – so you could be at a .08 and be feeling kind of intoxicated on the way up, on the way down you may be at a .08/.10 and you feel completely fine. So if you get pulled over for speeding, tail light out, you drop your cell phone, you cross the line, the next thing you know you’re arrested, you take a breath test and you’re convicted of a DUI.

 

RJ: Is there a particular story that you keep hearing from your clients?

 

MT: I hear a lot of times from people that they thought they were OK. Once in a while you’ll get the high BACs and those people know that they screwed up. But a lot of people, probably a majority, tell me that they truly thought they were OK when they got behind the wheel.

 

RJ: You alluded to this before, but do you feel the current DUI punishments are too harsh or are they targeted properly, and why?

 

MT: No, I’m not sure that the punishment is too harsh – certainly for repeat offenders once they’ve been through the system, they’ve already gone through alcohol education programs, they should not be getting second and third and fourth offences, the risk out there for people. So I think the punishment – it is harsh – but I don’t know that it’s too harsh. My concern is, because of the political nature of these cases, you have decent, generally law-abiding citizens that are getting a DUI, they thought they were being responsible, and the judges are afraid – politically afraid – to show mercy. Now not all of them, but a lot of them. I had a judge tell me one time, I had a black naval officer who was one of the best that they had, two commanders came in said he’s the best and brightest that we have – he came from nowhere – he didn’t know his father growing up and was the first in his family to go to college, and he winds up getting a DUI. These guys said that this would be a career ender for him. He’d only been an officer three years, and we were asking the judge for mercy in that case. And the judge said, “you know, I’m really sorry, but it’s either your career or mine”. That’s the thing that I do not like, I feel that judges should be able to show mercy on generally law-abiding citizens. They do in a lot of other aspects of criminal law, you can have people committing all types of crimes and mercy is shown but a lot of judges are politically afraid for their own jobs and they will not show mercy in a case and I think that’s wrong. Now, some of them still do and I commend those judges that do.

 

RJ: That leads into the next question. What do you see as the future of DUI in terms of punishments and the whole landscape?

 

MT: I’m not sure, there’s been talk of technology going into cars that will monitor the level of alcohol in the person every time they get in their car. That technology is available. I’ve heard that the Mothers Against Drunk Driving are urging congress to pass legislation that this be part of vehicles, I don’t know that that’s going to happen, but if something like that happened, probably the number of DUIs would go down, maybe a punishment would become more difficult, or harsher. I can tell you this that during my 20 years, pretty much every year or every few years, they make the punishments harsher, but the number of DUIs don’t really go down and it goes back again to the people thinking they’re OK when they’re not, and the fact that alcohol impairs your judgment so no matter what the punishments are people are going to make mistakes.

 

But I will tell you this, I think that, I’ve often told police officers, prosecutors, I said “Hey, why not make the legal limit zero?” If the state truly is concerned about the safety of people on the roadways, make the legal limit zero, because people can be impaired a .04, some people that have low tolerances, but the state is too hypocritical to ever do that because Virginia gets billions of dollars in tax money, from the sale of alcohol, and we sell it ourselves, from Virginia state stores. Bar and restaurant owners would be going crazy if the legal limit was zero, a lot of people don’t want to do that so I don’t think you’ll be seeing that happening in Virginia or anywhere else. But that way people would know, you can’t drink and drive… Period. But right now, it’s still legal to drink and drive.

 

RJ: What would you say makes your firm unique in providing DUI defense?

 

MT: Well, two things make us unique. 1) Is our knowledge and expertise. As you mentioned, I wrote the book for lawyers in Virginia on the science, the technological issues, the medical issues. I think there’s only a good handful of lawyers in Virginia that truly understand the technology and truly understand how medical issues can give you false results – that makes us unique. 2) We as an office care about people. I care about my clients. Everyone in this office truly cares and I receive compliments about my staff all the time about how wonderful they are, and we are not a mill, we really care, and going back to the first thing, I feel we really give people the best chance of getting out of a DUI charge if they go with us.

 

Watch Michael Tillotson Video Interview HERE >>