William C. Head's Legal Cases (79)

DUI and DWI

Mature Woman in Tight Dress Skirt Arrested for DUI, Asked to Do Field Tests and Has 0.08% Blood Test - Not Guilty

Jun 24, 1997

OUTCOME: Not Guilty on DUI Charge and "Weaving" Charge

The Defendant, C.M., a female in her mid-50s, met her boss & his wife at the Gainesville Holiday Inn at around 7:00 P.M. They had two glasses of wine & then the boss drove them toward Atlanta to dinn ... er at a Longhorn restaurant, some 30 miles. Here, C.M. had a full steak dinner, potato, bread and salad for dinner as well as a 1-1/2 glasses of wine. Late in the evening, she had one final cocktail with her supervisor and his wife. She rode with her supervisor, the 30+ miles back to her car at the Holiday Inn in Gainesville. C.M. got her car at 12:45 a.m., and was pulled over seconds later by a female officer with the Gainesville police department. A second car and its male officer quickly arrived at the scene. The second (male) officer approached C.M.â€™s vehicle and explained to her that she had been pulled over by the female lieutenant for â€œweavingâ€ and asked whether or not she had been drinking. C.M. replied, â€œYes, at dinner, but thatâ€™s all.â€ Then the female lieutenant departed, leaving the patrol officer at the scene. C.M. performed two requested field sobriety tests: the walk and turn and the one leg stand. The walk and turn test was requested despite the absence of a visible line to follow. Moreover, no demonstration was given by the officer, as was required by field sobriety training. Following the two tests, C.M. was placed under arrest for DUI and the officer began to handcuff her. C.M. was indignant that she was being arrested. She requested a phone call, but the officer refused. The officer then began to read the implied consent warnings, but made errors in verbally advising her, and asked C.M. if she would take a blood test. Unsure of what she should do. C.M. replied, â€œNot at this timeâ€ and again requested a phone call. The officer again refused to let her make a phone call. The officer threatened her with loss of her license for one year if she refused. She finally relented to the coercion and submitted to the test requested by the officer. Next, the male officer took CM to the hospital for blood to be collected. There, he asked her to sign a consent document. In order to read the document she was asked to sign, she needed her glasses. He would not retrieve her glasses, and once again refused her request. He contended that it did not matter whether or not she signed the consent form because she had verbally consented at the arrest site. C.M. was given the blood test, and then taken to jail. She was given no â€œresultsâ€ at that time, since the blood is only drawn at the hospital, not analyzed there. The GBI does the analysis at a later date. While in jail, the officers and staff made it extremely difficult for C.M. to make any phone calls to get in touch with family and legal counsel. No phone directory was available to her and the pay phone was defective. Numerous calls never went through. After reviewing all facts of the case, a decision was made to go to trial. The GBI blood test came back at 0.08%, and the legal limit at the time was 0.10%. The prosecutor wanted to proceed with the case anyway, so a bench trial at Gainesville Municipal Court was chosen. The original arresting officer testified that she had observed C.M. for approximately one mile after C.M. made a wide turn and changed lanes without using a signal. However, the officer also testified that â€œno other driverâ€™s safety was compromised by C.M.â€™s driving conduct that evening.â€ A recent case from the Georgia Court of Appeals (Bowers v. State - 1996) was cited by Mr. Head as authority for the judge to acquit C.M. for this offense. In addition, we proved at trial that C.M. was given an inaccurate and insufficient implied consent warning. Our argument to the judge was that the method of advising C.M. of her rights was coercive and overbearing. We also proved that the officer failed to conduct the field sobriety tests in the â€œstandardizedâ€ and approved manner Judge Law acquitted her of ALL charges.

Speeding and traffic ticket

Arrest for Illegal U-turn Declared Illegal - Also wins DUI Case

Dec 17, 1996

OUTCOME: Since Traffic Ticket Case was Illegal, so is DUI

A Florida businessman was in Atlanta with his wife and daughter. The daughter was taking the CPA exam, and the parents were there to support her. When the father was returning to their hotel, he lost ... his directions to the Hotel. When he saw he was going the wrong direction, he made a U-turn. Within a minute, and officer was behind his vehicle with blue lights on. The officer said he smelled alcohol, and asked Roger H to step out of the vehicle for some field sobriety evaluations. Roger H had an alchol result over the legal limit, and the officer then placed him under arrest for DUI and illegal U-turn. Mr. Head filed a Motion to Suppress, alleging that the police officer had no legitimate belief that a traffic law had been violated. Roger H's wife (who had been the passenger) testified that the U-turn was executed without difficulty, and that ample distance existed to do it safely. This was proven at Clayton County State Court, and the case was dismissed by the Judge. The Prosecutor appealed this decision. Mr. Head handled the appeal, which upheld the trial judge's decision to end the case based on an unconstitutional arrest for the traffic ticket (U-turn).

DUI and DWI

Teenager with 0.16 Breath Test Result Wrecks Car on a Concrete Median; Found Not Guilty of DUI

Nov 19, 1996

OUTCOME: Not Guilty of DUI; $75 Fine for Lane Violation

A.M., a teenage female, had been out to dinner with a friend at an O'Charley's Restaurant. She had consumed alcohol there after her dinner, before taking her friend home. On her way home a deer ran i ... nto the roadway and, in attempting to avoid hitting the deer, she ran up on a concrete median, causing damage to the undercarriage of her car. A car behind A.M. stopped to help, but fluids were leaking out of the wrecked vehicle. A.M. left the car at the scene and got a ride with a female neighbor of her high school friend, who took her to her friend's house. There, A.M. called her parents and told them of the accident. Her father drove straight to the accident scene, and her mother drove in the other family car to a friend's house to pick her up. A.M. and her mother arrived back to the scene of the accident, arriving more than an hour after the initial wreck. A.M. saw her father talking with two officers at the scene. The officer asked A.M. if she had been drinking, and she replied no. She explained that she swerved to avoid the deer and hit the median. The officer then insisted that she perform the field sobriety tests. A.M. was very agitated by this request. She was already upset about the accident and the damage to her car. A.M. asked if she could have an independent blood test taken instead of taking breath tests. The officer said no. As a result of the officer's answer and after being advised that her driver's license would be taken for one year if she refused, A.M. felt she didn't have a choice. She was arrested and later blew into the Intoxilyzer 5000 and gave a result of more than 0.16% grams on both tests. Even at the station, A.M. repeatedly asked for and was refused an independent blood test. She was crying, upset and (eventually) became verbally combative with the officers. We submitted the case as a bench trial to the Recorder's Court judge, fearing that a Gwinnett jury would not be sympathetic to an underage driver who was obviously drinking. At trial, we proved that the officer failed to read A.M. her Miranda rights before her field tests, despite knowing that she was underage and that alcohol possession (much less DUI) was a criminal offense for which arrest was imminent. In addition, the officer had no knowledge of whether or when A.M. had actually driven the vehicle, nor how long it had been since that driving ended. The officer also lacked any knowledge of whether the alcohol was consumed before the accident or even before her driving ended. It appeared that the officer, upon finding the teenage girl with alcohol on her breath, jumped to a lot of conclusions which he could not prove at trial. We proceeded with a bench trial and A.M. was found not guilty on all counts of DUI, but found guilty to lane violation. She paid a $75.00 fine.

DUI and DWI

Clemson Student with Missing Florida Tag Gets Pulled Over in Bulldog Country & Charged with DUI

Jun 04, 1996

OUTCOME: Not Guilty of all Charges

Defendant, a 21-year old Florida resident who attended Clemson University, was stopped in Downtown Athens after the 1994 Georgia-Clemson football game in Athens. (Clemson won, by the way!) The reason f ... or the stop was "no tag on vehicle". His temporary tag on the new car had fallen down in the rear window and was not visible. Defendant fully cooperated with the officer, and was exceedingly polite to the officer. The officer, a University of Georgia police officer with marginal training on field sobriety tests, admitted that he had learned field tests from another officer whose grasp of field testing was poor, at best. The three tests given included saying the alphabet from "F" to "F" (yes, start with "F", go to the end and start over and go back to "F"), a finger count test wherein the five fingers of one hand were supposed to be counted by touching the fingertips of all five fingers twice, and a walk & turn-type test, with about half the proper instructions for the evaluation to make any sense and a defective demonstration. The officer told the jury that the Defendant failed all of his "homegrown" sobriety tests, although the officer admitted that he had no particular scoring system, other than his own general, subjective perception of performance by Defendant. He was particularly tough on counting off for alleged manifestations of impairment which he had not instructed Defendant were part of these tests. The officer also verified that Defendant had reported "bad knees" from previous soccer injuries. Because Defendant wanted to call someone to decide whether to take the official sobriety test, and was refused permission to do so, he refused to submit to breath testing. After unsuccessfully arguing for exclusion of the refusal at the motion hearings in 1995, Mr. Head asked for review of this decision when the case came up for trial in June of 1996. The basis for exclusion was (a) that the implied consent advisements were deficient due to not advising the Defendant, as a non-resident licensee, that his privileges to drive "AT LEAST" in the State of Georgia would be impacted by his decision to be tested or to refuse under the implied consent law [State v. Coleman, 216 Ga. App. 598 (1995) and State v. Renfroe, 216 Ga. App. 709 (1995)], and (b) in October of 1994, the portion of the warning which threatened that if he submitted to testing and the results indicated a BAC of 0.10% or more, his "license or privilege to drive may be suspended for a minimum period of one year" was factually incorrect inasmuch as Defendant had no prior DUI convictions, and that prior to January 1, 1995, the advisement given was only applicable to repeat offenders. The judge, Kent Lawrence, reconsidered the prior ruling and excluded the refusal. At trial, the defense called Defendant's friend, a 22-year old female friend from his high school in Florida. She had been with him the whole evening, and testified that he had no alcohol from about midnight until the traffic stop at 4:32 A.M. This was partly due to Athens' early closing time taht was enforced at that time. Defendant also testified in the case, and indicated that from 6:00 P.M. to midnight, he had 5 drinks, with no other alcohol when they went to the 40 Watt Club to dance after leaving the bar where they had eaten. We also brought in Bill Taylor, a Georgia expert on field testing who testified that the officer's homemade field tests were totally meaningless, and unreliable to prove sobriety or lack of sobriety. The jury deliberated for 35 minutes before returning a not guilty verdict on the DUI.

DUI and DWI

Not Guilty to All Charges Despite 0.17 and Harmful Admissions about Drinking 3 Kamikazis

May 07, 1996

OUTCOME: Not Guilty to DUI and Underlying Charge

Defendant K.J. was originally charged with two counts of DUI (less safe and per se) and driving left of center line. The arresting officer obtained a breath test of 0.17% and two field tests (Alco-sens ... or and the HGN "eye" evaluation). One officer made the stop, but called in a DUI Task Force officer to complete the arrest. The forst officer testified about the bad driving, even including the description of K.J. striking the curb with his right front tire as he made a left turn too wide. The task force officer testified to the usual manifestations of an impaired driver, and stated that Defendant had not been asked to do the one-leg stand and walk and turn field sobriety tests due to "safety" concerns due to his obvious imapirment. Magistrate Judge Warren P. Davis substituted for Judge Cook the day of the trial. By way of pre-trial motions, the test result was excluded by Judge Davis due to defective implied consent advisements. This eliminated the per se DUI count. The State's proposed use of a prior similar transaction was withdrawn on the eve of trial when the officer in the previous case could not be located. Despite the task force officer testifying that Defendant had admitted "having several beers and 3 kamikazes", and allegedly making the following unsolicited, spontaneous statement: "The kamikazes was what done me in," the jury acquitted Defendant after deliberating 21 minutes. The underlying charge of driving left of center was eliminated at the conclusion of the State's case by motion for directed verdict of acquittal. K.J. had been told by three different attorneys that his best bet was to plead guilty at Recorder's Court and do his jail time at the work release facility, so that he could go to work each day and possibly save his job. However, he would have lost his right to drive with the conviction and had no one to take him to and from work. He was told by each of them that he had "no chance" to win a second offense DUI case in Gwinnett County State Court.

DUI and DWI

DUI Accident with Injuries Case Won by Mr. Head Proving Judge Made Error by Declaring Mistrial After Jury Empanelled

Mar 21, 1996

OUTCOME: Total Victory when Judge Wrongly Granted Mistrial

Case citation: 224 Ga.App. 8, 479 S.E.2d 406 (1996) Kenny J. was charged with DUI and failure to maintain lane in 1993 involving an accident with injuries. His test result was well above the legal ... limit. On his behalf, Mr. Head filed numerous motions prior to trial, including a request for a copy of the accusation showing each and every charge that Mr. J faced. Trial of the case was first called for jury trial on January 22, 1994. The defense announced â€œready.â€ The jury was empanelled and the trial was ready to start. Then, the prosecutor attempted to BROADEN the DUI charges to add other types of DUI (e.g., being above the legal limit) which had not been previously accused. Mr. Head objected, saying that jeopardy had attached, and no new charges arising from this driving incident could be added. The prosecutor suggested a continuance for the Defendant, and Mr. Head objected to the fact that this would require a mistrial, and that jeopardy had already attached. The judge granted the prosecutorâ€™s request over Mr. Head's strenuous objections and a mistrial was declared. When the court called the case for trial again on June 23, 1994, Mr. Head filed a Motion for Discharge and Acquittal, basically saying that another trial was barred, due to the fact that another jury had been empanelled and the trial judge had improvidently granted a mistrial over the defenseâ€™s objections. The judge denied Mr. Headâ€™s motion, From this ruling, Mr. Head immediately appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, saying that a direct pre-trial appeal was appropriate, due to former jeopardy. The Court of Appeals agreed. Here are some quoted lines from that 1996 opinion: â€œAfter the jury was impaneled and sworn the State proceeded on an accusation charging violation of driving under the combined influence of two or more specified substances in addition to the charges contained on the UTCs. The accusation was not served on Jefferson prior to trial.â€ â€œThe trial court's statement that Jefferson â€œwanted more timeâ€ to prepare inaccurately suggests that Jefferson acquiesced in the mistrial. Jefferson's counsel never acquiesced; counsel made the comment only in response to the trial court's question as to whether he intended to â€œproperly prepareâ€ for the additional count in the event a continuance or mistrial was granted. The trial court failed to consider less drastic alternatives, and nothing in the record shows that it factored into its decision Jefferson's right to be tried before the sworn jury. It also failed to consider the surrounding circumstances, notably that [Client] was served with a copy of the accusation after the jury was impaneled and sworn even though he requested a copy three months before the trial.â€ â€œThe record indisputably shows that the trial court's action was undertaken in circumstances that were not urgent and without regard to the State's failure to inform [Jefferson] of the charges on which it intended to proceed. Moreover, the trial court gave no â€œconsideration [to] alternative remedies which would have preserved [Client's] â€˜valued rightâ€™ to proceed with the trial. Consequently, [Client's] plea in bar was erroneously denied.â€ RESOLUTION: Mr. J walked away from all charges, without ever having to risk a conviction with the jury, due to the combined errors made by the judge and the prosecutor. This was Mr. Jâ€™s second DUI charge, and a conviction would have had lifetime consequences for him.

DUI and DWI

Pilot's 0.174 Breath Test Case Results in a Not Guilty in Carrollton Municipal Case

Mar 04, 1996

OUTCOME: Defective Uniform Traffic Citation is Key

An airline pilot from North Carolina on vacation in Georgia was stopped for failing to yield in Carrollton. He was given field tests, which the video revealed he failed miserably. The DUI arrest foll ... owed, at which time he was read his implied consent rights. Fortunately for him, the officer did not read them correctly. The officer also wrote only one Uniform Traffic Citation regarding DUI, and that citation limited the "type" of DUI on that citation to the per se (above the legal limit) subsection. Mr. Head filed a few written motions, but otherwise announced ready for trial at Carrollton Municial Court. The time of court beginning at 5 P.M. at that time, because the judge was part time, and came to perform his court duties after his regular work day. When Mr. Head arrived, he sought permission to go last, since the courtroom was full of other people charged with various traffic offenses, including many DUI cases. The judge stated that he was taking the "attorney" cases first, and that the NC client's case would be third on the list. After the first two attorneys pleaded out their clients to DUI, Mr. Head stepped forward and announced that he and his Client were ready for trial, and that all motions could be addressed during the trial. That was agreed to, and the case began. The arresting officer started his testimony and once the issue of the breath test was brought up, Mr. Head was able to show that the implied consent rights were read incorrectly. That excluded the breath test results. Then, Mr. Head immediatley requested a judgment of acquittal from the judge, since the one Uniform Traffic Citation was written for a per se DUI, and the breath test was absolutely essential to that type of DUI (incorrect implied consent rights [at this time] resulted in exclusion of the breath test). Mr. Head cited two appellate cases directly "on point", and the judge took the legal points under advisement. In about 10 minutes, the judge was prepared to rule on the motion, and (with great reluctance) granted it. Mr. Head then said that his client was willing to enter a nolo contendere plea to the failure to yield and suggested a high fine to resolve that part of the case. Since the Pilot had no prior traffic history, the offer was accepted. Because "jeopardy" had attached, no further trial could be brought on the other types of DUI that did not get charged. That meant that Mr. Head's client would have ZERO points on his traffic history from this traffic arrest. This also cleared his FAA record, so he could keep flying. As Mr. Head and the North Carolina client departed, several other people facing charges followed him out, seeking his card, and asking if he could handle their cases that night. The Pilot saved his FAA license and his driver's license due to the acquittal.

DUI and DWI

Successfully Using an Expert Witness to Estimate Blood Alcohol Level for DUI Suspect & Also Excluding State's Test

Jan 24, 1996

OUTCOME: Not Guilty on DUI Charge for Emory Student

Defendant, an Emory University student who came to college from California, was charged with speeding, driving left of center and DUI (less safe). The incident occurred at 2:00 AM on Clifton Road, dire ... ctly in front of the Emory University Hospital. The pre-trial phase of the case became heavily involved with questions of the admissibility of field sobriety tests, especially where the roadside suspect had a BAC of less than 0.10% alcohol in his system (0.10 grams percent was the level at which NHTSA field tests have a correlation to sobriety or lack of sobriety). The trial judge let the testimony about the deficient field tests into the case. Despite the officer testifying that he learned certain field test procedures in the NHTSA course, the judge was initially inclined to grant the Solicitor's pre-trial motion in limine that NO REFERENCE to "NHTSA" standards be made in the case. This order was vacated when NHTSA FST expert Rick Swope testified at a later "proffer" hearing, establishing that every state had adopted NHTSA, including Georgia. The officer had been through the NHTSA certified training, yet chose not to follow this "standardized" training in his method of scoring the tests, method of instructing the tests, and the total failure to demonstrate the tests. Upon my request that he fully demonstrate the tests, he declined to get up and do them. The judge even asked him to "try", and he still politely declined. All credibility for the tests as being a valid indicator of sobriety evaporated with this failure to perform. The officer had obtained a test result of 0.08% on a breath test. However, the implied consent advisement that the officer verbally gave to D.P. was defective, and a decision on whether to exclude the test results had to be made by the trial judge. The assistant solicitor moved to exclude the results at the pretrial motion hearing, and, after some reflection, we agreed to this motion. At trial, the defense called Rick Swope from Davie, FL, an expert witness on field sobriety testing and on forensic breath/blood testing. Swope was called for two purposes: (1) to listen to and observe the arresting officer on administering the field sobriety exercises, and to testify that the field evaluations given D.P. were " not valid" because of departure from NHTSA guidelines; (2) to use retrograde extrapolation to establish the "range" of alcohol (between .05% and .08% at the time of arrest), based on body weight, food intake, time and quantity consumed. Once the defense had Swope testify and also had the Defendant provide evidence of his activities, including alcohol consumption, the State moved unsuccessfully to introduce the previously excluded 0.08% reading on the Intoximeter 3000, as rebuttal evidence. After much discussion and legal research, the trial judge denied the Prosecutor's request to allow the 0.08 test result back into the case primarily due to the fact that Swope's testimony covered the range of 0.08%, so no impeachment or rebuttal was authorized. The two day trial resulted in a not guilty verdict on the DUI charge, and guilty on the other two traffic offenses.

DUI and DWI

Rollover Wreck in Rainstorm Mars Female Client's Birthday; 0.25 Blood Test Almost Convinces Her to Plead Guilty. Not Guilty.

Nov 14, 1995

OUTCOME: Motions Asserted at Trial End 0.25 Case

On her 24th birthday, Client had celebrated a bit too much. As she negotiated a sharp curve in the road as she neared her apartment in a heavy Spring rainstorm, she missed the turn and drove her front ... right tire.up on the curb and the SUV overturned. The crash left her dazed and slightly injured, and the vehicle totalled. By the time police arrived, the Client was out of the vehilce (she climbed out the front windshield) and was sitting on the shoulder of the road. Emergency medical personnel were attending to her cuts and abrasions, and the police officer did little investigation after he smelled alcohol and saw the wrecked vehicle. The Client's older brother insisted that she not plead guilty, and offered to loan her the money to hire Mr. Head. He knew of Mr. Head's focus on difficult DUI cases, and had a close friend who had successfully avoided a DUI conviction when he hired Mr. Head. Client's brother also knew that she had a prior DUI within 5 years and that another DUI would take away her license and end her job, plus put her in jail. The case was called for trial, and the pre-trial motions were being heard by one of the Magistrate judges (who was sitting in for Dekalb State Court Judge Matthew Robins) before the jury was called in for selection. One of the pre-trial motions filed by Mr. Head was a motion to suppress based upon defective chain of custody of the blood results. The State started its proof of the propriety of the blood test results and (within 25 minutes) Mr. Head successfully blocked this effort because not all required witnesses had been subpoenaed and therefore were not present in court. Each effort by the Prosecutor to discuss the chain of custody "events" was met by Mr. Head with an objection to "hearsay" or "lack of a proper foundation"The 0.25 blood test result was never introduced, and (because the arresting officer never conducted any meaningful investigation of the case) the State had to drop the DUI charges. Client walked away with no DUI charge, thereby saving her job and learning a valuable lesson.

DUI and DWI

Clayton County Driver Weaving Between Lanes with 0.16 Breath Test Result and Video Aquitted of DUI

Nov 09, 1995

OUTCOME: Not Guilty of DUI Charges

Defendant K.H. was see not maintaining his lane on I-75 South. A DUI Task Force officer monitoring traffic coming from south Fulton County into Clayton County pulled him over at the Office Depot (Arrow ... head) Shopping center off Tara Boulevard, 1/2 mile later. Virtually the entire pursuit and stop were videotaped. Defendant denied consuming any alcohol initially, and again denied drinking, when the officer later tried to ask how many drinks he had consumed. NHTSA standardized field roadside exercises were given, and the officer evaluated the Defendant's performance as unsatisfactory on all 3 evaluations. A subsequent breath test revealed a 0.16 BAC level. However, the breath test result was excluded at pre-trial motions under O.C.G.A. Â§ 40-6-392(a)(1)(A). The officer claimed that the surface upon which the field evaluations were given was "level". Mr. Head introduced expert testimony from Rick Swope, of Davie, FL that the slope of the parking lot was too steep for proper field testing and was nearly twice the permitted grade of state highways. The trial judge, without any request from defense counsel or the prosecutor, ordered a van from the Sheriff's Department to take the parties and jurors to the location for a view of the slope. The judge also accompanied the jurors, and all jurors were permitted to walk the surface where the field exercises took place. After the jury returned, closing arguments and jury instructions were given, Defendant was found not guilty of DUI, and guilty of lane violation (which was clearly shown on the video tape). The jury deliberated for 24 minutes.

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