PLYMOUTH, MI, March 1, 2018 -- My client was charged in the 35th District Court in Wayne County by the City of Northville after defendant ran off the roadway and struck a sign. Although the performance of field sobriety tests was not horrible, defendant certainly did not pass the field sobriety tests. The PBT was a .18, and the Datamaster breath test was .15.
All of the local jurisdictions in the 35th District Court are pretty reasonable but not exceptionally lenient. This includes City of Plymouth, Plymouth Township, Northville Township, and Canton. All of these jurisdictions are represented by smaller, local firms. But the City of Northville is represented by a large firm, Plunkett Cooney, which is one of the largest law firms in Michigan. I have no idea why a large law firm would toy around with criminal prosecution work, or why the City of Northville would engage a large law firm to conduct criminal prosecutions, but I am more than happy to square off against a big law firm.
Problems date back to the inception of the case. I filed my normal discovery demands and FOIA requests on the case. I received two bills: one bill for $42.29 and a second bill for $255.55. These two bills were for disclosure of identical materials. I sent off an angry email asking the City of Northville to explain why I was receiving two bills for the same material, demanding to know if they were intending to hold back some information unless the larger sum was paid. I was told by Plunkett Cooney attorneys that I was engaging in "baseless and ridiculous rants, accusations and threats." Nonetheless, they agreed to release the information, and my client paid the $42.29.
At the very first pretrial, I was told that "the City of Northville doesn't deal on drunk driving cases." With a raised eyebrow from the prosecutor, I was asked what I intended to do, and I couldn't blurt out the words "jury trial" quickly enough. I immediately walked down the hall and mentioned this to the other local prosecutors, and we literally had a good laugh over this policy. By imposing a "no deals / no reduction" policy, the prosecutors make the decision to go to trial an easy one, and I love taking cases to trial.
At a trial management conference, the City of Northville shifted course and decided that they might be willing to deal, offering my client an impaired. Clearly, the "no deals" policy extends only to simple cases where the attorney is not willing to fight the charge. A reduction from OWI to operating while impaired is not a significant victory, but this how most jurisdictions will resolve a first-time drunk driving offense in Michigan.
Unfortunately, while these charges were pending, my client picked up another offense in a bad jurisdiction. With a first offense, most people will avoid jail, but if there is a prior conviction, jail is a real possibility. In a bad jurisdiction, it is nearly certain. Now the pressure was on. If I could not beat the City of Northville, my client was very likely going to do some jail time in the bad jurisdiction.
At the TMC, we were forced by these circumstances to proceed with our defense. The trial court judge set some strict cutoffs, and I filed lengthy jury instructions and motions.
The prosecutor responded to my motions, and we conducted an evidentiary hearing. At that hearing, the prosecutor and police officer admitted that they had not reviewed the video recordings prior to the hearing. The trial court judge told the prosecutor and the officer at that time that they were required to prepare for a hearing whenever they go up against me because he knew that I had reviewed the materials. I had, but recall my earlier "baseless and ridiculous rants" regarding mandatory disclosures? I was surprised to learn that the prosecutor's video had audio. Mine didn't. Despite being surprised, I was able to deal with my client's manner of speaking, admissions, and performance of verbal field sobriety tests on the fly. I won one motion in part, getting a couple of the filed sobriety tests suppressed, and I lost the other motion.
The matter was scheduled for jury trial, and the prosecutor agreed to turn over copies of the video that contained audio prior to trial.
In the days leading up to the trial, I peppered the prosecutor with peer reviewed journal articles. This was just for fun. I also asked him to prepare a trial-ready version of the video with audio.
At 6:12 p.m. on the night before trial, I finally got the video with audio. It was not a final trial-ready version of the video, but the prosecutor had at least gotten me the video with audio. I stayed up most of the night preparing a trial-ready version.
On the day of the trial, a senior attorney arrived along with the prosecutor. These two were going to tag team me, and I was bleary-eyed from a long night. I presented my video, and the pair protested. The court officer told them to watch it, and the judge was upset that they had not prepared a final video for trial. The judge also mentioned that the prosecutor had failed to file jury instructions, so mine were adopted.
Jury instructions are incredibly powerful with a jury, and my jury instructions are written as favorably as possible for the defense. This was an awesome turn of events.
Finally, I made a quick motion regarding witness disclosures and noted that the prosecutor had omitted important information that I believed might be critical during the trial. The trial court judge held that we would deal with the matter during trial, but "it sounds like the prosecution might have a major problem getting the breath test admitted."
The prosecutors met with the officer in charge for about 15 minutes in a conference room, walking out with an offer to reckless driving. We accepted.
And that's how a "no deals / no reduction" jurisdiction reduces a .15 OWI accident to a non-drinking and driving offense!