DUI Defense

Florida DUI, criminal defense, and personal injury, explained by a forensic lawyer-scientist and former public defender. Celebrity cases, courtroom strategy, and the science behind the evidence, in plain English.

Rory Safir

Every post here is written by Rory Safir, one of a handful of ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in Florida and a former Assistant Public Defender in Tampa.

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A Golf Cart, a Refusal, and the Hearing Most Drivers Never Request

A recent client of this office was stopped while driving a golf cart and arrested for DUI. Florida treats a golf cart as a vehicle for DUI purposes, so the arrest carried everything a car arrest carries, including the part most people never see coming: an administrative suspension of his...

How Many Drinks Is Over the Legal Limit in Florida?

Somebody at every party claims to know the answer: two beers and you are fine, three and you are over. The honest answer is that nobody can tell you a safe number of drinks, and the reason is not lawyerly hedging. It is how the law is written and how...

The State’s Best Witness Was a Helicopter Nobody Listed

A recent Hillsborough County case ended with a felony drug charge reduced to a misdemeanor, two of the four counts dropped outright, and no jail. The method behind that outcome is worth more than the outcome itself, because nothing about it is exotic....

A DUI Arrest Puts Your CDL at Risk for a Year. Here Is How One Driver Kept His.

For many drivers, a DUI arrest is a legal problem. For a commercial driver, it is a payroll problem....

A Lazy Eye, and the Check a Florida DUI Officer Is Supposed to Run First

A police officer is on the witness stand. He has spent forty minutes telling a jury that the way a woman's eyes moved on the side of a road proved she was impaired. And I am asking him to define a lazy eye....

Tony Romo’s OWI Arrest, and the Strange Reason the Same Night Would Be Worse in Florida

On the evening of Thursday, July 23, 2026, a Milwaukee County sheriff's deputy stopped a car on the I-43 high-rise bridge. The driver was Tony Romo, the former Dallas quarterback and, since 2017, the lead NFL analyst at CBS. He was arrested on suspicion of operating while intoxicated, first offense....

Cannabis DUI Dropped: What a Positive Urine Test Actually Proves

The State offered diversion. Our client turned it down, we sent the prosecutor a forensic packet instead of filing a motion, and the charge was dropped in full....

RFI Detect: How an Officer’s Radio Undid a 0.179 Breath Test

Everyone who walks into a Florida breath testing room is carrying a transmitter. The operator has a portable radio. The arresting officer has a phone, a body camera on his chest, and more often than not a smartwatch....

DHSMV Has Opened Rulemaking on the DUI Hearing Rules

The Department has opened rulemaking on the chapter that governs DUI administrative suspension hearings. Nothing has changed yet. Here is what is in scope....

A DUI in Sarasota, Manatee, or DeSoto? DETER Is the Most Structured Exit in the Region

If your DUI, or your boating DUI, happened in Sarasota, Manatee, or DeSoto County, your case sits in the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, and the Twelfth runs the most structured diversion program in the region. It is called DETER, and I just published a free plain-English guide to it: Safir Guide...

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Case Results

Acquittal, Pinellas County: DUI jury acquittal after the HGN eye test was challenged.

Past results are examples only and do not predict, promise, or guarantee the outcome of any other case.

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Client Reviews

“Rory rescued me. His professionalism and knowledge of criminal law turned what could have been a terrible situation into freedom. One of the best attorneys in the state, in my opinion.”

Daniel T.

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