Cobb County DUI Information
What to know if you've been charged with a Cobb County DUI
Heading home after a couple of cocktails at Hemingway’s and you’re pulled over for speeding. A Guinness or two at Johnnie McKracken’s after work and all of the sudden there are blue flashing lights in your rear-view mirror. Beers with buds watching the game at Mazzy’s and now you’ve got a DUI. Need an experienced, professional Cobb County DUI attorney? With over 50 years of combined experience defending DUI arrests, George C. Creal, Jr., P.C., Trial Lawyers is the Real Deal Cobb County DUI Law Firm. We’re seasoned in the Cobb County Justice System. We know the Courts, Judges, Prosecutors, and Police, and they know our undying commitment to fight for our clients’ rights. Hiring the right Cobb County DUI Lawyer is a critical step in getting the right result and getting your life back on track.
A DUI arrest triggers both an administrative court proceeding regarding the suspension of your driving privileges even before a criminal conviction known as an Administrative License Suspension hearing and criminal proceedings in the Cobb County State Court or one of the many municipal courts in Cobb County such as Marietta, Smyrna, Acworth, Kennesaw, Powder Springs or Austell. Time is of the essence since you will have only 30 calendar days from arrest to request a hearing to prevent an administrative license suspension with the Office of State Administrative Hearings if you received a Georgia Department of Driver Services Form 1205 at arrest or your license was taken by police and not returned. In the criminal court, there are deadlines surrounding your initial criminal court date known as arraignment. Many motions have to be filed before or within ten days of arraignment or they can be waived.
Finally, you should never resolve your Cobb County DUI case until you have reviewed both the initial and supplemental police report, viewed any dash camera, body camera or private video surveillance footage. Video footage can disappear so obtaining videos at the earliest possible moment is critical. Finally, witnesses must be interviewed including police officers. You never know what a police officer will say until you put him under oath on the witness stand. This typically means that most cases should be litigated through motions before a plea is entered. Lawyers that do not budget for a motion hearing in their retainer fee are not ensuring that you get the best result possible under the law. We routinely push cases to motion hearings. We rigorously investigate and cross-examiine the State’s witnesses. Our firm is in your case for the best result and not a quick plea. Sometimes the best results can not be obtained until right before a jury is selected, so being will to take your case all the way is sometimes required to get the right result. However, a jury trial is the option of last resort and only should be utilized when all other options have been exhausted.
We use The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHSTA) training protocols in DUI Detection and Field Sobriety Evaluations, the very DUI training manuals use by police, to lay the foundation of your DUI defense. We use their training manuals to expose the flaws and inconsistencies in DUI detection, and to prove our clients’ innocence. For more information, visit our Helpful GA DUI Page.
Dedicated Cobb County DUI Lawyers Determined to Win – Aggressive DUI Representation You Deserve
We have handled thousands of DUI cases, had hundreds of DUI arrests reduced to non-DUI traffic offenses or reckless driving prior to trial, and won in excess of one hundred DUI Jury Trials. Unlike many DUI firms, we have valuable Not Guilty Jury Trial Experience. Ask other lawyers when was the last time they heard a jury find their client “Not Guilty” in a DUI Case. You will be surprised at how many so-called “expert” DUI Lawyers cannot tell you the last time they tried a case to a not guilty verdict.
PULLED OVER AND SUSPECTED OF DUI?
If it’s the First Time or Next Time, it’s Always Good to be Prepared. Even if you’re not technically DUI, if there is an odor of alcohol on your breath you are likely to be arrested and taken to jail. If the police cannot arrest you for DUI per se (blowing over 0.08), they’ll most likely arrest you for DUI less safe: blowing under the legal limit, but being “less safe” to drive because of the presence of alcohol or drugs.
Hiring a Cobb County DUI Attorney
For Our Firm, Client Communication is Essential
We do not hesitate to give you our office and cell phone numbers, and If you call, text, or email us about your case, we will contact you as soon as possible and never in more than 24 hours. We understand you’re anxious about your Cobb County DUI. With our firm and our experience, you can relax. We represent a diverse group of DUI and traffic clients every day throughout the State of Georgia and always show our clients the utmost care, respect, and compassion that they deserve. Our goal is that by the end of our representation you feel confident in recommending us to your closest friends and family members. Customer Service is priority number one for our firm.
How to Hire a Lawyer for a Cobb County DUI
A Cobb County DUI is Serious and Can Include Fines and Jail Time
Even for a 1st DUI, you can be fined up to $1000.00 with up to 100% tacked on as court costs. You can spend up to 12 months in jail, do 40-240 hours of community service, submit to drug and alcohol testing for one year, and be subject to 12 months of reporting probation including random urine screens for drugs and alcohol consumption. Your license can be suspended anywhere from 120 days to 5 years. If you are pulled over for DUI with children in the car under 14 years of age, then each child counts as an additional DUI. If someone is seriously injured or killed in an accident and you are charged with DUI or reckless driving for just having alcohol on your breath, it is a felony that can range from one year to twenty years in state prison. Do not try to handle your DUI with an experienced Cobb County DUI Attorney. Call us today at (404) 333-0706, email at [email protected], or go to our website for an Online Case Evaluation.
Advice as to who you decide to hire as your Cobb County DUI Lawyer: 1) Don’t hire a DUI lawyer based solely on price. Sometimes the cheapest lawyer–especially if they plea you to a DUI charge that you don’t deserve at the first opportunity–can be the most expensive. Cost per hour is the best way to compare lawyers. If a lawyer charges $1000, but only spends an hour on your case, that’s $1000 dollars an hour! We, unlike bargain basement firms, spend an average of 10-20 hours on every DUI case 2) Ask any attorney that you speak with whether he/she has tried any DUI jury trials and how many not guilty verdicts he/she has received in the past 2 years; 3) Ask any attorney that you speak with whether he/she has studied police field sobriety training manuals, breath test machine, owner’s and area supervisor’s manuals, reviewed GBI blood test chromatograms under the conclusory blood alcohol report, which is not actually a blood test result but just an average of two results often rounded up, including control runs for your client, yearly calibration runs, weekly tuning runs. If not, they cannot adequately cross-examine DUI police officers, breath test operators, or GBI toxicologists who are law enforcement officers and not neutral scientists. A DUI lawyer who can’t answer these questions is not ready for a real DUI jury trial and is not worth your time and money.
We Take Care of Your DUI So You Can Get Back on Track
We handle all types of Georgia DUI cases including those with or without breath and/or blood test results, a refusal of blood, breath, or urine tests, and cases with and without Standardized Field Sobriety Evaluations. We have handled DUI accidents and DUI fatalities DUI Drugs, Fleeing and Eluding the police, marijuana possession, felony, and misdemeanor obstruction. There is no set of facts our Cobb County DUI attorneys have not seen at least once. Over our 20 plus years of practicing DUI law, our case procedure has become a fine-tuned, methodical and thorough process that examines every possible DUI defense and has the potential for success in almost any type of Cobb County DUI.
Our initial consultation is always free and we will send a ten-day ALS DUI license hearing request letter for free as long as you pay the State Department of Driver Services $150.00 filing fee.
A Cobb County DUI lawyer is standing by. Call TODAY (404) 333-0706 or email us at [email protected] to review your case.
Cobb County Municipal Court Information
The State Court of Cobb County was created in 1970 by the Georgia General Assembly as authorized in OCGA 15-7-2. State courts are criminal and civil trial courts of limited jurisdiction and were created to relieve the superior courts of certain cases. State courts may exercise jurisdiction over all misdemeanor violations, including DUIs, Marijuana Possession less than an ounce, certain domestic violence cases, and traffic cases.
The Court may also hold hearings on applications for the issuance of search warrants, issue bonds, and hold preliminary hearings. State court judges are elected to four-year terms in a nonpartisan, countywide election. The governor fills vacancies by appointment.
Since its inception, the State Court of Cobb County has grown include twelve full-time judges, over thirty full-time support staff employees, thirty-six part-time employees, and twenty-one full-time employees in a Sentence Enforcement Unit.
In 2007, the State Court of Cobb led all Georgia state courts in total case filings and dispositions with 163,082 filings and 151,802 case dispositions. The State Court of Cobb County is the second-largest in Georgia in the number of full-time judges and ranks third in the population served.
Cobb State Court Judges and Court Livestreams:
Court
12 East Park Square
Marietta, GA 30090
Phone: (770) 528-2626
