On the night of his arrest for Operating While Intoxicated, our client believed his professional life was over. He was a driver for a national delivery company and knew an OWI would end his career with that company. It is something he repeated over and over on the video on the night of his arrest. He was referred to our office and we went to work on the case.
Initially, a motion challenging his arrest without probable cause was filed and argued in the circuit court. We won that motion and the trial court suppressed all the evidence in his case. The State was not happy with the decision and they appealed the trial court’s decision to the Court of Appeals.
After lengthy briefs in the case the Court of Appeals ruled with the State and reversed the trial court, basically admitting all the evidence (including a .12 breath result) that had previously been suppressed.
So the client went from a virtual guarantee of winning to starting the whole case over and having to deal with the .12 test result. As the matter moved closer to trial, Attorney Corey Chirafisi spent a lot of his preparation time meticulously reviewing the evidence-including watching the video of the defendant’s arrest- and was able to firmly establish that the arresting officer, who claimed a 20 minute observation period was completed, was not even in the room for almost half of the 20 minutes.
As we prepared the matter for trial, cuing up the video to show the jury, the prosecutor called and asked if the client was willing to accept a reckless driving ticket in lieu of the OWI. The client was thrilled, he was able to continue in his career and suffered no conviction or revocation of his license--only a small fine. The case took almost two years to finish but perseverance paid off for the client with an amazing result.