1st OWI Charged Deemed Not Guilty at Jury Trial

A Grieve Law client obtained a verdict of not guilty after their attorney argued the field sobriety tests were not conducted properly and were contaminated by the client’s ongoing medical issues.

The Charges

At about 10 in the morning at the Milwaukee airport, first responders were called to assist an employee who was having difficulty breathing on the tarmac. This employee’s specific duties were to drive a fuel truck to refuel the planes.

Officers arrived to provide assistance, and the man in need of assistance was sitting in a stairway being assisted by EMTs. The officers said they noticed the smell of alcohol, and after the man decided not to go to the hospital for further evaluation, he was asked to complete field sobriety tests.

The field sobriety tests were completed by an officer who was undergoing field training, and it was clear that the man was still suffering from breathing issues during the tests. After completing the field sobriety tests, the man completed a preliminary breath test which gave a result of 0.19.

In order to arrest the man for Operating While Intoxicated, though, the officers needed to establish that he had been driving. Neither the officers or the EMTs observed him driving the fuel truck, so they reviewed surveillance camera footage. They were not able to determine whether it was the man driving the fuel truck in the footage or someone else. Instead, they relied on the fact that the man had driven to work that morning; his vehicle was in the employee parking lot and he had the keys in his pocket. He was then arrested for Operating While Intoxicated – First Offense.

The Defense

After his arrest, the man retained the assistance of Grieve Law. His attorney went through all of the evidence and found that the officer that conducted the field sobriety tests did not do so correctly. The field sobriety tests are standardized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and that training specifically states that if the field sobriety tests are not conducted properly, we may not be able to rely on the results. Additionally, it was clear that the client was still suffering from medical issues during these tests, often needing to take breaks to sit down and catch his breath, which are not traditional signs of alcohol intoxication.

The evidence of driving a vehicle was also questionable in this case because no witnesses had actually observed the client driving a vehicle that day. Instead, the officers were relying on circumstantial evidence that he had driven to work earlier that morning. But they did not know exactly when that was, nor was there any video evidence to prove it.

The Results

The attorney filed a Motion to Suppress, arguing that the field sobriety tests should not be relied on because they were not conducted properly, and even if they were conducted properly, the results of those tests were so contaminated by the client’s medical issues that they should not be relied on. Further, the prosecutor could not prove the last time the client operated a vehicle. As a result, there was not enough evidence to arrest the client for OWI.

Unfortunately the judge did not agree and denied the motion, but the attorney did not give up. The case was scheduled for trial, and the same arguments were made in front of a jury. After a two day trial, the jury saw things differently than the judge and returned a not guilty verdict in just 15 minutes!