Georgia DUI Attorney - Success Stories

Fulton County Trial

38 year old female; stopped for alleged weaving (failure to maintain lane); performed field sobriety evaluations fairly well; windy, cold conditions; refused chemical testing; videotape disappeared;

RESULT: NOT GUILTY

It was through guile, and a bit of cunning that we were able to set up the cross-examination in a way that we felt fairly sure we could trap the police officer into making a significant mistake to his case. It was a well planned and crafted cross examination and is an example of why people should be diligent with the strategies and the tactics involved in fighting these cases, rather than just throwing up hands because a case seems almost impossible to beat.

This case also represents an all too common set of facts within the realm of DUI arrests.

The client was driving her car, alleged to have had her tires touch the fog lines, or highway lane dividers. Upon being pulled over the officer smelled the odor of alcohol on her breath, she performed the field sobriety evaluations, which the officer had instructed improperly, and, he conceded, that a videotape had existed but that it had disappeared.

The client was stopped because another allegedly officer saw her weaving within her lane and, perhaps, saw her leave her lane of travel or touch her wheels on the lane dividers. He called the eventual arresting officer who clearly indicated in his police report that he made the stop based upon the observations of the other officer. However, because the case took place in Fulton County it took forever to go to court and by the time it did actually reach a trial date, almost three years since the original arrest date, the arresting officer now changed his version of events, in contrast to the facts contained in his police report, and claimed that he saw the client driving her vehicle.

Believing that the officer was lying, and feeling that we could prove it, we demanded a bench trial (one in front of a judge only) and through a very quick, 20 minute, cross-examination, we were able to prove the officer was lying about the client’s refusal to take a chemical test, as well as lying when he stated during the trial he had seen the client failing to maintain her lane of travel. During Jeremy’s cross examination of the officer, he quickly gave conflicting testimony with regard to this point and ultimately it was determined that his testimony lacked credibility.

The field sobriety evaluations were not very persuasive either because the judge was shocked that the client was forced to perform them in the 25 degree cold, on an overpass in the middle of the night with the wind whipping around her. The judge concluded the swaying, inability to maintain balance and problems on the walk and turn all could have been caused as a result of the brutal cold conditions she was forced to endure, as opposed to merely being under the influence of alcohol. These conditions were established by other witnesses that we found and subpoenaed to trial and, once the officer testified on a re-cross we forced him to admit these conditions could have also been the cause of the perceived clues exhibited by the client and not just caused by alcohol consumption.

The judge, not a jury, refused to convict the client of any of the counts presented and found her not guilty across the board. The judge went so far as to state that he wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer could even accurately recall what he saw that night, given his clear mis-statements about what he observed as the client’s driving, let alone that the State had met its burden of proof to convict.

DeKalb Jury Trial Report

37 year old female; two car accident; client failed to yield causing oncoming car to hit her; field sobriety evaluations performed moderately well; chemical test refused; PBT on side of road .18; airbags deployed;

RESULT – NOT GUILTY AT TRIAL.

Our client was engaged in a two car accident, when she, while lost, attempted a left-hand turn and an oncoming car slammed into her. There was enough distance between the vehicles that the oncoming car could slow down and did its best to avoid the accident, nonetheless one of the passengers was slightly injured.

There was a videotape of the client’s encounter with the police, which revealed her to be tremendously lucid. She was slow yet accurate in recalling how the accident occurred, where she was drinking, how much she had to drink and when her last drink was. She did provide a good explanation as to what occurred and what caused the accident. She could recall, as she was being arrested, that she had personal items in her vehicle that needed to be secured. She didn’t slur her speech and had no problems with her balance, walk, eyes or other overt manifestations of intoxication.

The client did field sobriety evaluations on a roadway that had a cluster of rocks nearby and on the actual road the client was performing the field sobriety evaluations. Close examination of the videotape revealed that the client was not swaying, as the officer claimed. The officer did not give proper instructions on the walk & turn and the client, relative to the instructions, performed very well. She also looked fairly good on the one leg stand, though she swayed noticeably as the evaluation was wrapping up over its last ten seconds.

The independent witnesses to the accident were of no help to the prosecution, as they spoke mainly toward the damages that the victim had suffered. The driver of the other vehicle admitted that he saw the vehicle turning in front of him and attempted to avoid the accident.

The jury found our client not guilty in approximately 35 minutes. They had indicated that they did not find enough evidence to support that the client was performing poorly as a result of the intoxication, rather as opposed to the aftereffects of the accident in less-than-ideal conditions and having been given less-than-adequate instructions for field sobriety testing.

Fulton County Jury Trial Result

Thirty three year old female; stopped for speeding at a very high rate of speed; moderately good field sobriety evaluations, with a few problems on video; submitted to a breath test – results .149/.150;

RESULT: RECKLESS DRIVING – DUI dismissed.

This one was a very tough case, fought to the end and is one of our best examples of why it is so important to look deeply into these cases instead of just giving up.

Originally a City of Atlanta arrest where the client blew a .149, it turned out that there was a videotape and a very problematic statement made by the police officer. The client’s job required her not only to keep her driver’s license, but to maintain a level of insurability, that a DUI conviction would not allow. A reckless driving charge would be okay. We checked with her employer. All that said it was fairly difficult because no prosecutor along the way wanted to reduce a .149 test result to a reckless driving. Furthermore, the officer was objecting to the reduction as well.

The client performed all the field sobriety evaluations and she looked pretty okay on the videotape. She did exhibit some swaying from side to side, the field sobriety evaluations were not the greatest, she did put her foot down on the one leg stand, and, she didn’t really follow the instructions, at all, on the walk and turn. But she was not slurring her speech like the officer maintained, and, honestly, she looked really, really good on the videotape, to the point that you might not think she was impaired if you weren’t looking for some very, very close indicators. We knew that without a breath test it was a really good case to take to trial.

The strategy then became getting rid of the breath test and find a way to do it. We were able to do so because the officer had made one extraneous statement to the client that we were able to prove and capitalize on. We firmly believe that a less qualified defense firm, or any attorney who does not specialize in DUI law would have missed this statement and not utilized it properly as a weapon in the client’s case. As a result, we were successful in having the breath test thrown out of evidence. With no breath test coming in and no mention of a test having ever been taken, we knew that the jury would wonder if a test had been taken and if so why the state had not presented it to prove its case. It’s always a question that a jury’s going to ask when a test does not exist and we were able to recognize it, plan for and count on it.

To make matters even better for the client, our research and our familiarity with the court told us that the client would be facing very minimal jail time if she was convicted of a DUI. Given her circumstances with her job there was no question that this would be a fantastic case to take to trial. In the end we wound up with one juror that we just couldn’t get rid of for any reason, a former alcoholic who told us that he could be fair and impartial and when we talked to him afterwards we realized that he could not ever have been.

The result was, nonetheless, very good. The jury was hung 5 to 1 to find our client not guilty with the lone holdout being the person that we identified as being the problem. The jury found her guilty of a speeding charge and not guilty of all the other charges presented to them for a verdict. Most importantly they were 5 - 1 on our side to find her not guilty. After our interview with the jurors, after the trial, we were sure that we were in a great position to exercise some type of advocacy to lower the charge and have our client plea so as to avoid a retrial on the DUI. The client was more than willing to do so and as a result she was charged and pled guilty to reckless driving and received a better sentence from the judge than the prosecution had been negotiating from the outset.

All around a big win for everyone, except the State.