Re: dui
That police officer gave your son the CORRECT advice. A person is presumed innocent until all evidence is produced and guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt.
A conviction for DUI carries jail time, probation, very hefty fines, and 7 or more years of high risk insurance rates. Moreover, a person who has been convicted of DUI is more likely to be stopped by police since it is common practice to "run" a license plate and see if that vehicle is registered and if the OWNER has a criminal record... upon seeing that your son has a DUI conviction, a police officer will look for a reason to stop his vehicle; even if he never drinks and drives again, he will receive alot more traffic tickets that most people would not even be stopped for.
Should your son ignore the good advice he was given and plead guilty, he will be giving up his right to be presumed innocent; his right to remain silent; his right to see, examine and cross-examine the evidence against him; along with a myriad of other rights. Moreover, parents wit a DUI conviction in their past are less likely to have custody or unsupervised vistation with their children in the event of a divorce.
A BREATH test of 0.14 does NOT mean that your son was necessarily over the 0.08 BLOOD alcohol limit. The breath test is a very ROUGH estimate of blood alcohol level and will register incorrectly if you have food in your mouth (say a piece of a pretzel caught between your teeth). The test is similarly thrown off by temperature, volume of air, the calibration technique used by the police officer, the amount of time between the stop and the test and about a dozen biological factors to include race, height, weight, gender, body temperature (which varies due to time of day and sleep cycle), ethnic background, physical fitness (both muscle mass to fat ratio as well as cardio-vascular depth), etc. The manufacturer's of the breath testing equipment admit that between one quarter and one third of the american population could have an artificially inflated score.
Your son should speak to an attorney before making a decision that will impact him for the rest of his life.
