When I attended the police academy, many years ago, I was trained on how to detect and investigate drunk drivers. The training emphasized the importance of observing and reporting what a DUI suspect did wrong. For example, swerving, weaving, and not staying within marked lanes.
Now, in my role as a Massachusetts DUI lawyer, I often counter this “incriminating” evidence by cross-examining the police officer on what the driver did right. Often, the arresting officer will have no independent memory of this. When asked a series of pointed questions, the officer will be forced to admit either that he has a lack of memory or that at least some of the defendant’s actions suggest that he or she was not under the influence.
For example, police officers often write of a person who is slow to pull over, strikes the curb, drives off the road, or stops very abruptly in the travel lane when the officer activates his blue lights. They also describe how a driver is incoherent, unable to follow instructions, fumbles for his or her license, cannot locate the vehicle registration, has trouble standing or walking, exhibits unintelligible speech, or has to support himself when exiting his car.
In cases where these facts are not present, it makes for powerful cross-examination to get the police officer to admit that these factors were not present and that the driver’s performance was satisfactory in the above-listed areas. If the officer claims a lack of memory, it can hurt his or her credibility. It would seem strange that the officer could only remember the incriminating facts and not those which would tend to exculpate the defendant.
In 1944 Johnny Mercer wrote a song which contained the message, “’you got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.” By using my police training and experience in the manner described above, this is what I do in Mass. DUI cases. Accentuating the positive is one of the many tools which I use to regularly achieve the desired result for my clients: a not guilty verdict or dismissal of the drunk driving charges. Contact me via phone at 508-656-0057, complete the contact form on this site.
3,334 Comments.