Party To A Crime Possession of 72 Grams of Cocaine - Charges Dismissed (Dane County)

The first case involves a client who was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation.  In the course of that stop, officers located 72 grams of cocaine in the vehicle and $3,800 in cash in the clients purse.  

Now, to be fair, the driver of the vehicle said that the cocaine belonged to him, which is helpful.  The client told the police that the driver asked her to hold $4,000 in cash which was located in her purse, which is not helpful.  The State then made a decision to run DNA tests on the baggy in which the drugs were located and the scale located in the vehicle.  The portions of the scale had a positive DNA match for only one person in the vehicle, our client.

So, now we had a client as a passenger in a vehicle with 72 grams of cocaine, holding $4000.00 for the driver and her DNA on the scale used to weigh the drugs.  Seems like a good party to the crime case for the state.  

The State moved to dismiss the case against the client.  No cooperation, no amendment.  Just a straight dismissal.

OWI/Restricted Controlled Substance - Charges Amended

This case was challenging because it involved the client having Delta-9 THC in his blood.  The fact is, if Delta 9 is found in a person's blood, that person is guilty of Operating With a Restricted Controlled Substance, whether the state can prove impairment or not.  In this case, the client drove his car into a house, rupturing the gas line.  So, the driving was certainly considered poor.

We challenged the case on whether or not there was reasonable suspicion to conduct field sobriety tests.  We started with the Administrative Review Hearing where we were able to get the officer to admit that he didn't have any reason to believe the client was impaired by drugs or alcohol.

We then took that information and filed a motion in court to throw all the evidence out based on lack of reasonable suspicion.  Prior to the hearing being conducted, the prosecution offered to amend the charge to Reckless Driving.  A huge win for the client.

OWI/PAC 2nd (.20) Complete dismissal

This case came out of Dane County.  Client was arrested after traveling to a friends residence, breath test result was .20.  However, this case was full of really good issues for us to work with.  First, the police could not establish the exact time the client arrived at the location he was arrested.  That was very important as the state could not establish the test result was taken with the required 3 hour window. Further, and more importantly, the client repeatedly told the police that he had consumed alcohol after arriving at the location.  Our investigator was able to track down the liquor store the client bought the alcohol at, which also had a specific time of the purchase.  The time on the receipt made it likely that the client consumed the alcohol after arriving at the residence.  

On the morning of trial, the state moved to dismiss the case in its entirety.  

First Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety - Dismissed 3 days before trial

This case involved a client of ours who was referred from a family member.  The client had gotten into an altercation at his residence which led to him stabbing someone in the stomach with a knife.

The client was arrested and charged with First Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety.  Once we got the discovery, we noticed huge holes in the case.  At the time of the incident, approximately five (5) other people were present in the residence.  We learned that police made zero effort to speak to anyone other than the complaining witness and the client.  So, we had our investigator locate the witnesses to the stabbing who provided statements which helped the case.  We also filed a jury instruction on the "castle doctrine" which was front and center in the case.  

The best part about the case was the state offered a disorderly conduct charge, a huge reduction from the original charge.  We went back to the DA and rejected that offer.  To his credit, the DA knew the difficulties with the case and only 3 days before trial, he dismissed the entire case.