DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED CASE EXAMPLE

 CASE VICTORY JUNE 8, 2010
DWI ALS CASE EXAMPLE: TWO YEAR SUSPENSION OF RIGHT TO DRIVE BASED ON AN ALLEGED REFUSAL OF A BLOOD TEST-DISMISSED AFTER ADMINISTRATIVE LICENSE SUSPENSION HEARING AT THE DMV

http://www.ByeByeDWI.com

Please note-this is an example of the result of a recent New Hampshire DWI case. It is by no means a guarantee of any particular result in any other case.

BASIC FACTS: The citizen in this case was stopped for allegedly “crossing the white fog line three times”.  After the arresting officer asked her to get out of her car, he noticed her “hold on to her door for balance” getting out.  He asked her to perform the roadside gymnastics known as “DWI field sobriety tests”.   He told her to perform the “magic pen test”, which police call the “horizontal gaze nystagmus” or “HGN” test.  She passed it, even in the cop’s opinion.  He then had her do a “walk and turn test” and a “one leg stand test”.  She allegedly passed one of these and failed the other.  The officer then had her perform two “non-standard” (read: home-made) tests for which there is no scoring system.  The officer’s conclusion of course, after the entire series of sidewalk acrobatics, was that the citizen was under the influence and he arrested her.

At the station she refused to give blood to the police, explaining that she had smoked a small amount of marijuana earlier in the evening.  She later received a suspension action notice from the New Hampshire DMV because she allegedly refused to submit to a “blood test” test after being arrested for DWI.  The notice said that her driver’s license would be suspended for two years for the refusal, as she had a prior refusal from another case on her New Hampshire driving record.

This driver contacted Attorney Mark Stevens at 1-603-893-0074 within the thirty day time period in which a hearing can be requested to challenge this suspension.    Attorney Stevens filed a hearing request with the Department of Safety in Concord to challenge the administrative license suspension action.

HEARING PROCEDURE:            Attorney Stevens requested a hearing for this citizen at the New Hampshire DMV Bureau of Hearings in Concord.  Attorney Stevens challenged everything in his hearing request that the law and the rules allow regarding DWI breath test refusals.  The rules that govern administrative license suspension hearings are found at New Hampshire Administrative Rule Saf-C 2800.  After the state presented its case Attorney Stevens cross examined the arresting officer. 

The issue in this case was whether there was even enough evidence to sustain an administrative license suspension based on the officer’s unsupported conclusion that this driver was impaired by anything.  After hearing the wafer-thin evidence of “alleged impairment” presented by the state, the hearings examiner rescinded the administrative license suspension in this case.

RESULT:       ADMINISTRATIVE LICENSE SUSPENSION DISMISSED!!!   This citizen’s right to drive was restored.  She did not suffer the two year administrative suspension that the state sought to impose on her.

Attorney Stevens thanks God for this successful defense!!!

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE:

“And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.”

Galatians 6:9.

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