Drunk Driving Cases
Attorney William C. Head

Case 22
State v. A.M.
Gwinnett Recorder’s Court
Lawrenceville, Georgia

A.M., a teenage female, had been out to dinner with a friend at O’Charley’s Restaurant.  She had consumed alcohol there after her dinner, before taking her friend home.  On her way home a deer ran into the roadway and, in attempting to avoid hitting the deer, hit the concrete median, causing damage to her car.  A car behind A.M. stopped to help, but fluids were leaking out of the car.  A.M. left the car at the scene and got a ride with a neighbor of her friend to her friend’s house.   There, A.M. called her parents and told them of the accident.  Her father drove straight to the scene, and her mother drove in the other family car to A.M.’s friend’s house to pick her up.  A.M. and her mother arrived back to the scene of the accident, arriving more than an hour after the initial wreck.  A.M. saw her father talking with two officers at the scene.

The officer asked A.M. if she had been drinking, and she replied “no”.  She explained that she swerved to avoid the deer and hit the median.  The officer then insisted that she perform the field sobriety tests.  A.M. was very agitated by this request.  She was already upset about the accident and the damage to her car. A.M. asked if she could have an independent blood test taken instead taking breath tests.  The officer said “no”.  As a result of the officer’s answer and after being advised that her driver’s license would be taken for one year if she refused, A.M. felt she didn’t have a choice.  She was arrested and later blew into the Intoxilyzer 5000 and gave a result of more than 0.16% grams on both tests.  Even at the station, A.M. repeatedly asked for and was refused an independent blood test.  She was crying, upset and verbally combative with the officers.

We submitted the case as a bench trial to the Recorder’s Court judge, fearing that a Gwinnett jury would not be sympathetic to an underage driver who was drinking.  At trial, we proved that the officer failed to read A.M. her Miranda rights before her field tests, despite knowing that she was underage and that alcohol “possession” (much less DUI) was a criminal offense for which arrest was imminent.  In addition, the officer had no knowledge of whether or when A.M. had actually driven the vehicle, nor how long it had been since that driving ended.  The officer also lacked any knowledge of whether the alcohol was consumed before the accident.  It appeared that the officer, upon finding the teenage girl with alcohol on her breath, just jumped to a lot of conclusions which he could not prove at trial.

We proceeded with a bench trial and A.M. was found not guilty on all counts of DUI, but found guilty to lane violation.  She paid a $75.00 fine.

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