Case #1- OWI/Refusal-Amended to Reckless Driving (Dane County) 

When people call us and tell us that their case is "hopeless", most of the time the facts of the case are not as bad as they say.  Except here.  In this case, most of the facts were against the client.  Poor driving, excessive speed, failed field sobriety tests and a refusal to submit to a breath test.  Worst of all, our client had a license from a state (IL) where he would be facing a lengthy revocation if he was convicted of the OWI.  The great news for the client was, Chirafisi & Verhoff has been extremely successful against this particular prosecutor in multiple cases in the past and there has been a hesitation to litigate issues against us.

We believe that most of the time, the refusal drives the OWI charge, meaning if there is a way around the refusal, the OWI will fall as well.

So, we went after the refusal first.  It wasn't that difficult when we started.  We questioned whether the information provided to the client on the Informing the Accused form was correct.  The prosecutor agreed that a problem existed and quickly agreed to amend the OWI to reckless driving and to dismiss the refusal.  The client's license was saved.  

Stay tuned for our two other awesome end of 2018 results on Monday!