Forsyth DUI Less Safe Jury Trial Acquittal
Mar 11, 2026OUTCOME: NOT GUILTY.
My client was stopped late at night and charged with DUI Less Safe and Failure to Maintain Lane after deputies claimed she crossed the solid white line and displayed numerous signs of impairment after ... stumbling out of a local gas station before driving off in her vehicle. Four law enforcement officers were involved in the stop and investigation. The State's case rested heavily on the officers' written accounts and the results of a Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test administered roadside. The defense strategy was straightforward: put the video against the words. When the body camera and dash camera footage was compared to what the officers wrote in their reports and said on the witness stand, the conflicts were significant and consistent. What the deputies described in their narratives did not always match what the cameras actually captured. The HGN test administration was also challenged directly. The field notes reflected that the administering officer repeatedly stopped and restarted the evaluation, that my client was distracted by the officer's headlights during critical phases of the test, and that the officer ultimately scored only 2 out of a possible 6 clues, an incomplete evaluation conducted under conditions that compromised its reliability. The Walk and Turn and One Leg Stand tests were refused and never completed, leaving the jury with a partial, disputed HGN as the only field sobriety evidence. (This evidence was not admitted in the trial due to the Georgia Supreme Courts ruling in the Ammons case. The jury deliberated for approximately 90 minutes and returned a unanimous Not Guilty verdict on both charges.