DWI CASE EXAMPLE: SEPTEMBER 10, 2008

The New Hampshire DWI laws and penalties are tough.  Here is an example of a recent case victory-a DISMISSAL after Attorney Stevens’ motion to suppress (throw out) all the evidence was GRANTED in a New Hampshire DWI case:

DRIVER CHARGED WITH DWI AFTER COPS STOP HIM IN PARKING LOT

DRIVER REFUSES A BREATH TEST

DWI CASE EXAMPLE-BASIC FACTS: Two police officers saw a man standing outside his truck in a parking lot late at night.  The stores near the lot had just closed, and the police found the man’s presence outside his vehicle to be suspicious.  The man was standing near the rear of the stores, which the police found also to be suspicious.  The police saw the man reaching into his truck.  Like everything else the police observed, they found that to be suspicious too.

The two officers in a marked police patrol car drove up to the man.  When the man saw them approaching he got into his truck and put it in reverse.  One of the officers yelled at the man, “Hold on!” and the man complied with the demand.  As one officer ran this citizen’s plate number, the other began to interrogate him, including questions about his presence at the scene, where he lived, what he had been doing and whether he had been drinking.

The second officer then ran the citizen through the gauntlet of designed-for-you-to-fail parking lot gymnastics known as “standardized DWI field sobriety tests”.  The citizen supposedly “failed” these unusual exercises, as most do, both drunk and sober alike.  After the DWI field sobriety ritual, the police arrested this man and charged him with driving while intoxicated (“DWI”). 

This driver elected not to blow into the black rubber breath hose at the police station.  He hired Attorney Mark Stevens to represent him at trial.

READ ON TO SEE WHAT HAPPENED…

DWI CHARGE DISMISSED DURING TRIAL: SEPTEMBER 10, 2008