Our client was charged in Columbia County with Operating While Intoxicated 1st offense as well as having an alcohol concentration in excess of the legal limit at .155.
Client was referred to Chirafisi & Verhoff regarding her arrest for OWI 1st and after speaking with the client it was clear that she had a real issue in her case, she was at home the time the police arrived at her home. That issue posed two problems for the government, first, what time did she get home? Second, had she consumed alcohol since she had been home?
The government thought they could prove the time of operation with another witness who told the police what time the vehicle arrived home and according to the police, the client stated that she hadn't consumed any alcohol since she had been home. The government wouldn't move off the OWI charge, so the matter proceeded to trial.
At the trial held on July 25th, the government ran into multiple problems that proved to be the death of the case. First, they could not produce any witness to establish the time that the client had arrived home. The client testified as to the time of her arrival at home and the government literally had no response to her statement. Second, the client testified that she had told the officer that she had consumed alcohol after returning home and in fact pointed to a drink she had on the counter when they were in the residence.
The jury had the case for 22 minutes before returning a not guilty verdict on both counts.