My main office is located in Allentown (Lehigh County). The focus of my legal practice is almost exclusively on criminal defense, and legal issues related to criminal defense, including Immigration, Children & Youth matters, and Protection from Abuse (PFA). I am a solo practitioner and when you call me, you won’t have to go through multiple people to get to talk to me. I am very prompt in returning phone calls (unless I am in trial, when my focus is solely on the client whose life is on the line), and you’ll find that I respond back to clients even on evenings, weekends and holidays. That’s a big issue that many people have with the lawyer they hire—that the lawyer is not accessible and doesn’t keep in regular communication. Please note that I also keep a paralegal, private investigator, and translators (in Spanish and Arabic) available to me if needed. I speak Spanish and French myself.

1. THE LAW OFFICE OF KATHRYN ROBERTS
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2. DEFENSES IN DUI CASES
An experienced criminal defense
attorney knows there are
numerous defenses available in
a DUI case.
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3. WERE THE MACHINES USED BY POLICE TO
TEST YOUR BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL
PROPERLY CALIBRATED AND MAINTAINED?
Sometimes people charged with a DUI think that those
machines are foolproof—they aren’t. Machines break and
malfunction. DUI machines rely on humans to keep them
maintained properly (just like we have to do regular
maintenance to our cars) and the machines only give accurate
results if the person using them has followed instructions
properly in running them (in the same way that a car can have
problems if being operated by a person who doesn’t drive
correctly).
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4. WHEN WAS YOUR BLOOD DRAWN AND IS THAT
AN ACCURATE NUMBER?
The timing of the testing by the police lab is important because it’s possible
that the blood-alcohol level determined by the police lab is higher than it
was when you were driving (because your level was rising over time) and
that you were actually under the legal limit when you drove.
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5. WHAT WAS THE REASON GIVEN BY POLICE THAT
THEY STOPPED YOUR VEHICLE AND WAS IT A
PROPER STOP AND DETAINING OF YOU UNDER
THE LAW?
An experienced criminal defense attorney will always be
examining for whether the police overstepped the
boundaries of what they are allowed to do, and if the
attorney believes this has happened in a case, he or she
will usually file a motion to suppress evidence. This
results in a hearing well before any trial later, and if the
judge agrees with the defense argument, then the
evidence can be suppressed, which means the
prosecutor may not use it in a trial against you. This can
result in a dismissal of the charges if there is no other
evidence against you in the case.
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6. DID THE POLICE CONDUCT FIELD SOBRIETY
TESTS ON YOU AND WAS IT DONE FAIRLY?
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In my experience, what police are not well-trained in is
determining whether there are other factors that may
make a person do poorly on these tests. For example, a
person who has never been arrested before and has been
stopped by police, especially at night, may exhibit extreme
signs of nervousness, which can affect the person’s ability
to perform the tests and also influence the officer to
mistakenly believe the person is under the influence (or
think the person is more intoxicated than he or she is).

7. THANK YOU
If you get a DUI in Lehigh or Northampton County, then call me and I will
try to walk you through it. My office is in downtown Allentown right next
to the courthouse.
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