Tuesday, February 14, 2012

February 13, 2012: OWI-4th Reduced to Non-Traffic Offense

JAC first caught the attention of the police when he was seen
allegedly making a left hand turn in front of another vehicle, nearly
causing a serious accident. Things only got worse from there. It turns
out, JAC's license was revoked at the time, which the officer quickly
learned. After failing the field sobriety tests and refusing the blood
test, the police forced a blood draw from JAC against his will. The
result was not good: .194. Needless to say, when Attorney Sarvan Singh
got his hands on this case, he had his work cut out for him. Not only
was JAC facing the harsh consequences of a fourth DUI, he was also
charged with a criminal OAR and Unlawful Refusal of Chemical test, an
offense which carries a mandatory 3-year license revocation. Attorney
Singh had to be thorough, creative and aggressive if there was going
to be any hope for JAC. By closely scrutinizing two of JAC's prior
convictions from another state, doubt was raised about whether or not
those convictions could be used against JAC in the present case. In
addition, Attorney Singh sifted through page after page of lab records
to come up with a plan of attack on the .194 blood test result,
calling into question whether the alleged result could be trusted at
all due to the problems Attorney Singh exposed. After lengthy
negotiations, the prosecutor understood that there were many potential
problems with the case. As a result, a fantastic result was achieved.
The original charge of OWI-4th was reduced to the non-traffic,
non-alcohol-related offense of Negligent Operation of a Motor Vehicle,
an offense which will not even appear on JAC's driver record. The
remaining OAR and Refusal charges were completely dismissed. JAC
received one year of probation and a fine of $505.00, but otherwise
suffered no consequences from this incident. He received no jail time,
avoided the ignition interlock requirement and never lost his license for
even a single day. JAC couldn't possibly be happier.