2.29.2008

Trial Update



Success. A "not guilty" verdict came in within 15 minutes.

As you can tell, the breath test was .085 and .083 and it was taken an hour after the stop. The rest of the facts really favored my 21 year old client with no criminal history. He was followed by the trooper for throwing out a lit set of firecrackers in downtown Boyd (yep, while driving) but for the next 2 and 1/2 miles he only "touched" the yellow line with his driver's side tires one time and "barely crossed" the white fog line one time. Other than that, the driving was fine.

The field sobriety tests, in my opinion, were great. And, quite frankly, I think that's what won it. Even using the trooper's interpretation, (1) on the thirty second One Leg Stand test he put his foot down one time, and "swayed" and "raised arm for balance" one time at Count 29; (2) on the Walk and Turn test, he stepped off the line one time (I couldn't see it) did not touch heal to toe four times, and made an "improper turn." According to the Manual that all the troopers and cops use, that is failing. To your average person, that's pretty darn good. I promise you, if you saw the tape you would not have thought the guy was intoxicated.

But these things can go either way. I felt good about it, but I've been surprised before. Thankfully, this time there were no surprises.

Edit: One new wrinkle was to utilize Google's Powerpoint equivalent during the cross-examination of the trooper and technical supervisor. It won't make much sense, but they are both here and here. Me loves me some Google. (And the first presentation contains one heck of an algebra problem that I asked my secretary to calculate for me. And she did.)