DMV Investigations
When a California driver enters an administrative hearing at the DMV, the Hearing Officer will introduce police reports, accident reports, chemical test results, and the driving record as the primary pieces of evidence. If the DMV had its way, this would be the only evidence considered. Don’t let the DMV have its way.California Law mandates that a person in danger of losing his or her driving privilege be granted an administrative hearing to rebut (disprove) the evidence against him. California Government Code, Section 11513 (c) declares,
“Any relevant evidence shall be admitted if it is the sort of evidence on which responsible persons are accustomed to rely on in the conduct of serious affairs.”
This is the key to winning your hearing. The DMV Hearing Officer will introduce their pieces of evidence and then sit back to see what the driver can to do disprove the allegation. If your Advocate is prepared, he or she will be ready to object to the DMV’s evidence and will be prepared to quote specific case law to support the objection. Most importantly, however, your Advocate will be prepared to introduce the results of their own investigation to disprove the case.
Presumption of Guilt
One of the most startling facts of the DMV process is the automatic presumption that a driver is guilty of the accusation against him and the further presumption that all of the evidence against that driver is true and accurate. The presumption that an accused person is “innocent until proven guilty” is a hallmark of American Justice but, that presumption has no place at the DMV. The DMV assumes the license suspension is warranted and challenges the driver to prove them wrong.
Wont My Criminal Attorney Handle my DMV Investigation?
Depending upon a variety of factors, a criminal action conducted before a California Court of Law can take anywhere from 3‐12 months. The individual counties, the complexity of the case, and the availability of attorneys can all be factors which tend to make a court case drag on for months. Judges tend to be somewhat tolerant of how attorneys will “age” a case if there are reasonable grounds for continuances. Based on this benefit of available time, many attorneys will delay beginning an investigation into a client’s case. In many instances, a person’s initial court date may be 30 to 90 days after the date of arrest. If an attorney waits until then to begin an investigation, valuable pieces of evidence may be lost.
Remember, the DMV’s suspension of your driving privilege is automatic……… Defending yourself, is not. Call CDA immediately so we can get started finding the evidence that will get you driving again.
How to Protect my Driving Privilege with Immediate DMV Investigations
Time is critical. Vibrant and successful defense at a DMV hearing rely upon your Advocate being completely prepared in a very short period of time. Remember, your initial contact with the DMV must generally be made within 10 days and the DMV hearing can be conducted within 30 days after that. Despite the DMV’s preference to rush to judgment, you can be professionally and aggressively defended at the DMV; but there is no time to waste. A lot must happen within a very short period of time.
How We Help A Client Needing DMV Investigations?
CDA employs the services of two California licensed investigators to perform this critical work. Our investigators have extensive backgrounds in traffic enforcement, DUI investigations, accident reconstruction, and conducting witness interviews. Most importantly, our investigators are ready to go to work, the moment you retain our services; there is no delay. To win a DMV Hearing, you must investigate the investigation! Clearly, “investigating the investigation” sounds redundant; however, it is the only real path to disproving the DMV’s evidence and winning the reinstatement of your driving privilege.
Areas of DMV Investigations
Witness InterviewsThe “witness” is invariably one of the strongest forms of evidence which can be presented at a DMV Hearing. While it is true that the DMV hearing officer will vigorously attempt to discredit witnesses as being evasive or having motivation to manipulate the truth; the independent witness who testifies strongly and honestly has the power to directly impact the outcome of a hearing.….Learn More about Witness Interviews…. Video Evidence Among the most valuable pieces of evidence in any DMV administrative hearing is video footage. Video evidence is an unbiased, unflinching recreation of an actual event that often surpasses the recollection of a live witness. Video footage can disprove the allegations of a police officer, confirm the testimony of a witness, or explain inconsistencies in other pieces of evidence.….Learn More about Video Evidence…. Documentary Evidence Another means by which a driver may rebut the DMV’s evidence in an administrative hearing is by producing “documents” for consideration. Official documents are normally, reports, files, transcripts, or nearly any form of writing which tend to dispute or rebut the DMV’s evidence.….Learn More about Documentary Evidence….Scientific Evidence Generally speaking, investigating scientific evidence will occur when a person is facing a suspension or revocation of their driving privilege following an arrest or detention for DUI or a “zero tolerance” violation. In some instances, your CDA advocate may also seek to investigate scientific evidence when preparing to conduct a Physical and Mental hearing when the DMV suspects that a driver may be addicted to medications, drugs, or alcohol.….Learn More about Scientific Evidence…. Scene Inspection DMV administrative hearings are conducted within the confines of a Regional Driver Safety Office and the DMV hearing officer rarely leaves his or her desk. Essentially this means that a DMV hearing officer will make critical, life‐altering, decisions about a person’s privilege to drive without ever visiting the scene of an accident or the location where a driver was arrested or cited. Hearing Officers are often blind to the physical characteristics of a location where an incident occurred and only take their information from what is presented in their documents.….Learn More about Scene Inspection….
It is common for a person facing a drivers license suspension or revocation at the DMV to have a corresponding criminal case working in the court system. It is important to know that administrative actions taken by the California Department of Motor Vehicles are not affected by what happens in the court. DMV actions are distinctly separate from the court process. One of the most profound differences between the court and the DMV is the amount of time involved in handling a person’s matter.
The DMV process, however, is entirely different. It has been the practice of the California DMV to bring an administrative case to a hearing in 45‐60 days. While there are some instances where a DMV hearing may be continued for a number of months, this is quite rare. Managers at the DMV will frequently discipline Hearing Officers for taking too long to bring a case to an end. Consequently, DMV Hearing Officers will often deny requests for continuances and, therefore, many drivers who would have meaningful defenses at their hearings are rushed through the system and end up losing their driving privilege because they were unprepared.