To the impaired driving defense attorneys at GRL Law, the name of the game is relentless pretrial discovery. It’s what we do. Essentially, if there’s a defense, then we’ll find it and leverage it to produce uncommon results.
A recent OWI Second Offense charge in western Iowa provides a perfect example of this approach. After exhaustively reviewing 911 calls, dispatch logs, the dash camera and body camera videos and cross-examining the officer at the DOT hearing (yes, we vigorously defend DOT revocations at hearing), we discovered:
- The basis for the stop, a “verbal domestic,” was questionable;
- The officer had no reasonable grounds to request a preliminary breath test;
- The PBT was administered 6 minutes after the traffic stop (and less than 15 minutes from the leaving the house);
- The officer failed to properly observe a second 15-minute observation period prior to administering the DataMaster DMT test; and
- Our client was not advised that the refusal to test could be used against him at trial.
Because the traffic stop and implied consent were now both in doubt, the county attorney’s office stipulated to a suppression of the test refusal and amended the matter to two simple misdemeanor charges with minimum fines and no jail.
We’ll use the suppression ruling to reinstate our client’s driving privileges and remove the revocation from his record.
