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Tickets involved:
- Driving under the influence of B.A.C. above
a .08
- DUI under the influence
- Possession open alcohol by driver
- Improper lane usage; striking parked
vehicles
- Leaving scene vehicle damage accident
*
This case was a complete victory. All charges were dismissed
CASE SUMMARY:
On his way home our client struck two parked cars
located two blocks away from his home. After striking the cars, two
men appeared on the scene and said that they were the owners of the
cars. Our client becomes afraid and starts to panic. He then asks
these two men what he can do so that they would not call the police
These men say that if our client gives them some money they will not
call the police. Then these men become insistent that they want
money. Our client doesn't have much on him so they decide to go to
our client’s residence. During this time someone who had seen the
accident called the police. The police arrive and find our client
near his vehicle. As the police approach our client, he admits
freely that he had struck one of the vehicles and also admits to
drinking. During this conversation our client is unable to stand on
his own he needs to lean onto his vehicle for support.
As he’s leaning on his vehicle he is asked many
questions and gives many answers (non of the answers are in his
favor). As our client is standing there swaying unable to stand
still he is asked to perform some field sobriety tests. Upon trying
to perform these field sobriety tests he tries to moves himself away
from the car and is unable to stand on his own.
During the finger to nose test our client almost
falls down and the officer actually has to catch him so he doesn’t
hit the ground and on the other tests his performance is just as
bad. Upon failure of all these tests our client is taken into
custody and driven to the station where he takes a breath test. The
result of this test is a reading of .262. As dire as this case
looked, through the diligent representation and motion practice of
DDDL we were able to have all of his charges dismissed and remove
all mention of this from his record.
Tickets involved:
§
Improper lane
usage
§
Failure to stop
at a stop sign
§
Driving under
the influence of alcohol
§
Driving under
the influence of alcohol with B.A.C. above a .08
o
Actual .156
B.A.C
CASE
SUMMARY:
This case involves a police
officer who has nothing better to do than to follow a car driving
down the roadway looking for mistakes. While following our client
the officer watches our client weave from double yellow line to curb
several times. While this driving on its own may not be a
ticket-able offense (since it is not an improper lane usage at this
point) but according to the law in Illinois, this driving could be
enough just to stop a vehicle for further investigation.
The police officer watches our
client come to a stop past the stop line and watches our client’s
brake lights go on but he says she never comes to a complete stop.
At this point he thinks that she may be under the influence but, he
still doesn’t stop her. The police officer still wants to develop
some more evidence for his case, so he follows her further down the
road and sees our client drift over to the left into the oncoming
traffic lane of a two lane road very briefly. At this time the
officer initiates a traffic stop and pulls our client over.
Our client pulls into a
parking lot, which is a safer area to pull over then the street
side. Upon approaching, the officer speaks with our client. He asks
where she’s coming from and she says from a casino boat. Next, he
asks her if she had been drinking and she says she has had wine at
the casino. While talking to our client, the police officer notices
that her eyes are glassy and bloodshot. And while speaking with her
decides that she has a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on her
breath. Our client is then asked to recite the alphabet, which she
does correctly. In the officer's report he states that the odor of
alcohol was continuously strong during this recitation.
Even though our client recites
the alphabet correctly she’s asked to exit the vehicle. As our
client exits the vehicle the officer notices that she is walking
with a stagger. In an effort to gather even more evidence, the
officer asks our client to do some field sobriety tests. The first
test that she’s asked to perform is the one-legged stand test. As
she’s standing there the officer says that our client is swaying in
all directions and can’t maintain her balance while listening to the
instructions for this test. Also during this test our client places
her foot down on the counts of 2, 7, 20, and then could not continue
the test.
The officer next puts our
client into the start position for the walk and turn test. At this
time she is unable to stay in position and she is unable to maintain
her balance while listening to instructions. During this test the
officer says she stops to steady herself and does not touch heel to
toe and on the way out she almost falls over. She then loses her
balance while walking and raises her arms for balance. Further,
during the turn she losses her balance and is unable to come back
properly.
Next the officer gives her the
Rohmburg balance test during which she sways and is unable to
estimate thirty seconds (she stops at twenty five seconds).
The officer then performs the
horizontal gave nystagmus test which in his estimation she fails
completely.
Then the officer gives our
client the hand held breath test which yields a result of a .122
B.A.C. and places her under arrest for driving under the influence
of alcohol. After this, she is taken to the station where she is
asked to perform another breath test which she does and this time
the result is a BAC of .156.
After many months of
preparation and motion work this case ultimately ended in the state
dismissing all counts against our client and for our client this
turned out to be total victory.
Tickets involved:
§
DUI under the
influence of alcohol
§
DUI above a .08
o
Actual: .143
§
Speeding 40 in a
30
§
Driving on a
suspended drivers license
CASE
SUMMARY:
This arrest starts with a
police officer who sees our client and paces him. Next the officer
pulls our client over. Upon standing at the drivers door of our
clients car, the officer in his opinion detects a strong odor of
alcohol coming from our client’s breath. The officer then notices
that our client’s face is red in color and his eyes are bloodshot.
As the officer asks for our client's license and insurance he asks
him to get out of the vehicle. As our client gets out of his vehicle
the officer observes our client walks while swaying and that he
sways while turning. The overall observation is that our clients
balance is wobbly and his speech is slurred.
Our client was asked to
perform many field sobriety tests. Our client's balance during these
field sobriety tests is wobbling during the balance portion walking,
swaying while turning and swaying during the picking up of coins. On
the finger to nose test, the officer says that our client completely
misses his nose with the left hand each and every time and
completely misses his nose with the right hand each and every time.
After our client fails all of
the field sobriety tests he is placed under arrest for driving under
the influence of alcohol and then taken to the police station.
Eventually, our client takes a breath test, which reveals an alcohol
concentration of a .143.
After a lot of work and many
pretrial motions in this case the case finally culminated at a
trial. At trial the judge acquitted our client of the charge of
driving under the influence of alcohol, acquitted our client
for the charge of speeding and our client received a term of
supervision for driving on a suspended drivers license. It was
almost a complete victory for our client. Our client was very happy.
Since this was not his first offense for driving under the
influence, he would have lost his driving privileges had he been
convicted.
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Tickets involved:
- Improper lighting; only one headlamp
- Improper lane usage on a lane
- Driving under the influence of alcohol
- Driving under the influence of alcohol with
a breath alcohol concentration above a .08
CASE SUMMARY:
An officer While on routine
patrol observes a vehicle traveling with only one headlamp. This
gives the police officer a reason to conduct a traffic stop but
wanted to find more violations In a effort to gather more evidence
the police officer follows our client's vehicle for a period of
time. During this observation period our client while driving
crosses the center line on numerous occasions.
Now the officer stops our
client and speaks with him. Upon speaking with the driver the
officer states that he smells a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on
the driver’s breath. The officer also notices that our clients eyes
are bloodshot and glossy. At this point the officer asked our client
to step out of the vehicle and perform field sobriety tests.
The tests performed in this
case were the one-legged stand test, finger to nose test and the
walk and turn test.
The one leg stand test: The
officer characterized our clients agility as swaying and that our
client needed to use his arms for balance, and that our client
hoped, and that he puts his foot down. Overall our client fails this
test.
Walk and turn: During this test our client uses
his arms for balance and that he steps off the line. Also starting
too early pausing for balance, turning improperly and does not touch
heel to toe. Our client fails his test.
In order to further boost his case the officer
in his police report writes that our client almost fell down
numerous times during these filed sobriety tests.
Finger to nose test: during this test our
client was not able to touch his nose at all at any time.
This case also had a video and between the hard
work of our staff, reviewing the video and our motion practice we
were able to convince the judge that this was a proper case to have
the arrest quashed for lack of probable case. Once the arrest was
quashed the breath test was not allowed to be introduced as
evidence. Not only was the breath test kept out, all the
tickets were thrown out. This was a complete victory for the team of
DDDL and the client
Tickets involved:
§
No city sticker
§
Following too
closely
§
Driving under
the influence of alcohol
§
No proof of
insurance
CASE
SUMMARY:
This arrest started as a call in response to a
traffic accident in which our client and another vehicle had
collided. In the officer’s recitation of facts he said that he
arrived at the accident scene and approached one of the people
involved in the accident and spoke with them. Next, the officer went
to go talk to our client and found our client passed out in the
driver’s seat of his vehicle. Upon approaching the vehicle the
officer noticed that on the side of the drivers doors there was
fresh vomit. After waking our client and speaking with our client,
the officer detected a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on our
client's breath. At this point our client was asked to perform
several field sobriety tests including the horizontal gaze and
nystagmus test.
In the officer's
estimation,
our client
failed all the field sobriety tests given. The officers observations
were that besides having strong odor of alcoholic beverage on his
breath, the breath also smelled like vomit. Further that our
client’s speech was slurred. It also must be noted that the officer
stated that our client fumbled extremely through his paper work in
his wallet to try to find his driver’s license and that as he got
out of the vehicle our client had to hold on to the door for
support. Further, our client had admitted to consuming beers prior
to driving.
After the hard work of DDDL, the state dropped all
the charges against our client. Leaving our client to enjoy a total
victory.
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