Telling Your Story - Give the Jury a Reason to Find You Not Guilty of Drunk Driving
Many people believe that beating a DUI and winning a drunk driving trial requires complicated technical arguments and legal challeges. Often that is true, but at the heart of the matter is somthing much simpler.
To find you not guilty of a drunk driving charge, a jury or a judge must simply believe that your story is more reasonable than the story told by the prosecution.
What facts of your DUI case are easily relatable and understandable?
Put the jury in your shoes, and let them feel that this could happen to them.
I had a case years ago that started with my client rear ending the car in front of him at a red light. This is not a good start to a case, since most people believe that if a person caused an accident, there was something wrong with how he was driving, particularly if he had alcohol on his breath.
It also didn't help when the jury was told that my client had failed 2 out of 3 field sobriety tests.
But no matter what the facts of your case, you need to find positive aspects of the person's behavior, and change the jury's focus on the facts of the case. If they go into the jury room thinking that this guy caused an accident and failed field sobriety tests, you've probably already lost the case.
One of the good things in this particular case was that my client was videotaped at the police station. On the tape, he was incredibly polite and cooperative the entire time. It is important that the jury can see that he is a decent guy, and the fact that I could show them exactly how he behaved on that night was a big plus. He was even joking with the cops, and the cops were laughing with him. There was clearly no animosity on either side.
He was also speaking normally, not slurring his words, and he was walking normally with no apparent coordination problems. With him behaving normally, it was apparent that this was not a dangerous person. The jury could imagine that if they were arrested, this is how they might behave - not a dangerous criminal, but like a normal person.
The other interesting part of this case was when they asked if he had any jewelery, and he answered that he had a nipple ring. Police procedures require he remove any jewelery, so we have videotape of this somewhat overweight man removing his nipple ring. A few of the jurors laughed, and it was a funny image.
When I am arguing a drunk driving case, I don't think of myself as a lawyer. I imagine that I am a writer or a TV director, putting together the pieces of a story to generate the emotional response that I want from my audience.
Watching just a few minutes of this video painted an entirely different picture of the incident than the prosecution would have wanted. But I was able to change the focus away from a man with alcohol on his breath, causing an accident and failing field sobriety tests to something far more innocent.
After the prosecution rested their case, we didn't even need to get to the jury. The judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence.
It also didn't help when the jury was told that my client had failed 2 out of 3 field sobriety tests.
But no matter what the facts of your case, you need to find positive aspects of the person's behavior, and change the jury's focus on the facts of the case. If they go into the jury room thinking that this guy caused an accident and failed field sobriety tests, you've probably already lost the case.
One of the good things in this particular case was that my client was videotaped at the police station. On the tape, he was incredibly polite and cooperative the entire time. It is important that the jury can see that he is a decent guy, and the fact that I could show them exactly how he behaved on that night was a big plus. He was even joking with the cops, and the cops were laughing with him. There was clearly no animosity on either side.
He was also speaking normally, not slurring his words, and he was walking normally with no apparent coordination problems. With him behaving normally, it was apparent that this was not a dangerous person. The jury could imagine that if they were arrested, this is how they might behave - not a dangerous criminal, but like a normal person.
The other interesting part of this case was when they asked if he had any jewelery, and he answered that he had a nipple ring. Police procedures require he remove any jewelery, so we have videotape of this somewhat overweight man removing his nipple ring. A few of the jurors laughed, and it was a funny image.
When I am arguing a drunk driving case, I don't think of myself as a lawyer. I imagine that I am a writer or a TV director, putting together the pieces of a story to generate the emotional response that I want from my audience.
Watching just a few minutes of this video painted an entirely different picture of the incident than the prosecution would have wanted. But I was able to change the focus away from a man with alcohol on his breath, causing an accident and failing field sobriety tests to something far more innocent.
After the prosecution rested their case, we didn't even need to get to the jury. The judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence.
Podcast on How to Beat a DUI Charge
- How to Beat a DUI Charge
- Massachusetts DUI Attorney Russell Matson's Podcast on how to you win a drunk driving trial.
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