Evidence Suppressed: August 12, 2011
Today in pretrial motions, a King County district court judge suppressed all field tests from evidence which can be presented at the time of our client’s DUI trial. She agreed that there was no proof that our client had been informed of the voluntariness of the tests, and thus his agreement to submit to the tests was not informed, and had not been proven to come from his free will.
Case Dismissed: August 11, 2011
After a lengthy motions hearing, a King County district court judge today dismissed a DUI matter when he agreed with us that the officer did not have a valid legal basis to justify the stop of our client’s vehicle. Because the stop was unjustified, the investigation and all evidence gathered subsequent to the stop was suppressed. Because of this, we requested that the case be dismissed, and the court granted our motion.
DOL Revocation cancelled : August 4, 2011
After a prolonged argument, the Department of Licensing agreed with us today that our client was deprived of her due process rights and cancelled a license revocation today for refusing a breath test. The hearing examiner agreed that we were deprived of a full and fair hearing when a supervising trooper provided a differing account of a client’s provision of implied consent warnings than the version given by the arresting trooper. When the sergeant failed to avail himself for cross-examination, we argued that suppression of his report was not enough, and that we were deprived of our ability to argue the facts of the case after cross-examining the arresting trooper.
DUI Conviction Reversed on appeal : July 25, 2011
The Skamania County Superior Court has reversed a DUI conviction and ordered a new trial in a case where the breath test results (BAC) were improperly given to a jury. The improper admission of BAC evidence was prejudicial to a defendant and the prejudice could not be cured by a judge telling a jury to disregard the evidence. The Court found that our client’s trial attorney had provided ineffective assistance of counsel when he failed to ask the court to grant a mistrial so the defendant could receive a fair trial without the jury knowing the BAC result. We handled the appeal of this matter, which can be found at State v. P.L., 10-1-00006-1.
Evidence Suppressed : May 27, 2011
A district court judge suppressed a breath test today in a DUI prosecution, agreeing with us that the trooper provided incorrect and misleading information to our client regarding the impact of the breath test and the consequences for taking it. After the breath test was suppressed, the State eventually agreed to a deep reduction of the case to a lesser charge.