Drunk Driving Cases
Attorney William C. Head

Case 3
State v. R.D.
Dekalb State Court
Decatur, Georgia

Defendant was facing charges for "lane violation" and DUI (2 counts) in a case based out of Doraville. The breath test was 0.21%. The officer was a sergeant, with 25 years of service as a policeman. The client worked in a construction-related job which required him to maintain his plastic license to keep his job. In addition, there was a substantial chance that he would lose his job even with a nolo contendere plea.

This DUI was second lifetime, and a first offense in 5 years. Although at motion hearings in June, the officer stated that there was no videotape, the tape appeared on the morning of trial in October. Due to defective implied consent advisements, the breath test was excluded, thereby eliminating the per se count. Motions were heard on the morning of trial which (a) left the videotape in evidence, with both audio and video to be shown to the jury, (b) allowed the prior similar transaction of more than 76 months prior to the current case to be used at the present trial to show "propensity" to drive impaired, and (c) excluded the HGN test, due to the officer's lack of training.

Defendant was offered a nolo contendere plea with no jail time to serve, but turned it down, opting for trial. Just prior to jury selection, the State offered to nol pros the lane violation charge and the remaining DUI charge in exchange for a guilty plea to reckless driving. This was accepted by Defendant. The license was saved. The basis for the reduction was the poor showing of the officer at the two motion hearings, and some damaging evidence from the video tape showing the officer requesting a "transport" vehicle one minute after stopping the Defendant.

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