Brooks Law Firm
There are two cases against you after a DUI arrest with a refusal, not one. The criminal charge is the one everybody focuses on. The other is an implied-consent proceeding that decides whether you keep your license, runs on its own deadline, and is decided by someone other than the judge in your criminal case. It is the one people lose by default. Brooks Law Firm handles both. Call or text the criminal line at 901-412-2973.
What implied consent means
Under Tennessee’s implied-consent law, driving on a Tennessee road is treated as agreement to submit to a lawful chemical test of breath or blood when an officer has reasonable grounds to believe you were driving under the influence. Declining is not a neutral choice. It carries its own revocation, imposed whether or not you are ever convicted of the DUI.
The officer is required to advise you of the consequences before the request. Whether that advice was actually given, and given properly, is one of the first things worth examining.
Two tracks, two decision-makers
This is the part that surprises people:
- The criminal case — the DUI charge itself, in General Sessions or a suburban municipal court, decided by a judge on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The implied-consent case — a separate proceeding on a different standard, with its own timeline and its own consequences for your driving privileges.
They do not rise and fall together. You can win the DUI and still lose your license to an uncontested refusal. That happens routinely to people who hired a lawyer for the criminal charge and never mentioned the refusal, or who assumed one lawyer handling one case covered everything.
Deadlines here are short and unforgiving. If you refused, this needs raising in the first days, not at your first court setting.
Refusing is not automatically the smart move
The folk wisdom is that refusing denies the State its evidence. Sometimes true, often not.
Refusal carries its own revocation. It does not prevent the State from proving impairment through the officer’s observations, driving behavior, field sobriety performance, and video. And where a warrant is obtained, blood can be drawn regardless of refusal — so in a meaningful number of cases people take the revocation *and* the State gets the sample anyway.
What we look at in a refusal case
- Reasonable grounds for the stop. Everything downstream depends on it.
- Whether the implied-consent advice was actually given — and what the video shows about how.
- Whether what happened was a refusal at all. Confusion, a medical condition, a language barrier, or an inability to produce an adequate breath sample are not the same as refusal, though reports often record them identically.
- Whether a warrant was obtained, and if blood was drawn, the draw and chain of custody.
- The restricted-license question, which for many clients is the practical issue — see license reinstatement and court costs and reinstatement.
What to do this week
- Find your paperwork and check whether a refusal is noted.
- Write down what you were told before the test was requested, and what you said.
- Note whether you were asked for breath, blood, or both, and whether a warrant was mentioned.
- Do not contact the arresting officer or the prosecutor directly.
- Raise the refusal with a lawyer immediately — before your first court date.
More: the Memphis DUI defense guide covers the implied-consent track in full, and breath and blood testing covers the science. Also first DUI in Memphis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if I refuse a breath test in Tennessee?
Refusal triggers an implied-consent revocation of your driving privileges that is separate from the DUI charge and applies even if you are never convicted. It has its own deadline and its own proceeding.
Can I still be convicted of DUI if I refused testing?
Yes. The State can prove impairment through the officer’s observations, your driving, field sobriety performance, and video. Where a warrant is obtained, blood may be drawn despite the refusal.
Does winning my DUI case fix the license revocation?
Not automatically. The implied-consent matter is decided separately, and it is commonly lost by default while attention is on the criminal charge. Both need to be addressed.
Is every failure to complete a test treated as a refusal?
It should not be. Confusion, a medical condition, a language barrier, or an inability to produce an adequate sample are not refusals, though police reports frequently record them the same way. What the video shows matters.
Arrested for DUI with a refusal in Memphis or Shelby County? Brooks Law Firm is a member of the National College for DUI Defense. Office (901) 324-5000 · criminal line 901-412-2973.