Gregg R Woodnick's Legal Cases (4)

Criminal defense

Child Left in Car--Parent Prosecuted

Jan 01, 2011

OUTCOME: Charges Dismissed

In Maricopa County, parents who leave children in the car, even when there is no real injury, are often charged with child abuse/neglect. Child Protective Services (CPS) will be contacted and childre ... n can be placed in foster homes. Depending on the injury to the child, temperature and policies set by prosecutors of these cases, the charges can run the gambit from misdemeanors to negligent homicide. Everyone has heard stories about men intentionally leaving their kids in the car while going into a bar or strip-club. Remember the lady in Scottsdale who left her kid in the car but took her dog into Nordstroms? A few years ago I represented a mother, who despite what she thought were good intentions, left her son in the car while she went into a bookstore. The events occurred at the Target Shopping Center adjacent to Paradise Valley Mall. My client and her two (2) kids were heading to the “1/2 Priced Books” in the strip mall. The children, ages 3 and 7, were in the back seat of a Honda Oddessy minivan. The 3-year-old boy had fallen asleep in the car on the short drive from their home in Paradise Valley. Mom decided she did not want to wake the child, and found the closest parking spot to the “1/2 Priced Books”. She opened the sliding door so that she (and anyone nearby) could see into the van and where the boy sleeping and still strapped into his car seat. Fortunately, the weather was pleasant (70 degrees) and was not an issue when she left the car and walked about 150 feet (as measured by the Phoenix Police Department) into the “1/2 Priced Books”. As the minutes ticked on, pedestrians in the parking lot took notice of the little boy sleeping unattended in the vehicle. They gathered near the car wondering the whereabouts of the child’s parent. Someone called the Phoenix Police, who arrived a few minutes later and confirmed that the child was in good health and just sleeping. Ultimately, the roof-lights of the squad car caught the attention of my client who frantically came running out of the bookstore. The Mother approached the Phoenix police officer and tried to explain that she was watching the child from inside the bookstore. She indicated that she could see her son the entire time through the open car door and that he was okay. While the police were deciding what action to take, Mother called her husband, who was a physician at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. He quickly arrived at the shopping center and attempted to deescalate the situation. Notwithstanding his efforts, the Mother was arrested. Defending a parent accused of intentionally harming a child is always challenging…but defending a parent who unintentionally (certainly not maliciously) exposed a child to harm is often more difficult. My client was a PhD candidate and extremely intelligent (at least with book smarts). Yet, despite her formal education, she clearly exercised poor judgment by leaving her son in the car. In defending the case, we obtained video surveillance from the parking lot and were able to asses how long the Mother had left the child unattended…a total of 14 minutes. The State argued that the Mother must not have been watching from the store, as she did not see the small mob of onlookers until the police arrived with lights and sirens. In addition to criminal charges, Child Protective Services (CPS) was called. Our job was to assure that the CPS ‘unsubstantiated’ the child neglect allegation and that the criminal matter was successfully resolved by trial or reasonable compromise. Ultimately, we convinced CPS to ‘unsubstantiate’ the allegation, as the child was not harmed, and State of Arizona agreed to drop the felony charges. While we all think we would not make a mistake as serious as this, the reality is that it could happen to anyone. Unfortunately poor parenting decisions do not discriminate based wealth or education. My client made a bad decision, and fortunately, with our assistance, was able to avoid CPS taking her children or being convicted of a serious crime.

DUI and DWI

2 Brothers, 2 Cars, 2 DUIs

Sep 01, 2010

OUTCOME: Both DUIs dismissed

My clients, siblings and college students, were both speeding in Maricopa County. They had left a restaurant in separate cars and were heading home. At the restaurant they each acknowledged consumpti ... on of at least 3 beers with their meal. As they sped home they were both pulled over by the same motorcycle officer who started to cite them both for the speed infraction. The officer approached the first vehicle, and asked my client if he had been drinking. Ultimately both brothers were arrested for DUI after submitting to a PBT (portable) breath tests. Both were taken back to the police station and voluntarily tested with the (allegedly calibrated and accurate) breathalyzer. Both had BACs of over .12. During the officer interview in preparation for both trials, I got the officer to admit that the information on the reports was inconsistent. He acknowledged that it was possible that he wrote information about brother #1 on brother #2's investigative report. The officer was a gentleman. After humbly acknowledging his mistake, I gave him the prosecutor's phone number and he called and left a voicemail for the prosecutor detailing what he had admitted during the taped interview. The following day the Sate dismissed both DUIs.

Child custody

1 CA-CV 10-0085

Mar 31, 1911

OUTCOME: Succesful at trial and affirmed by the Court of Appeals

Grandparents rights matter. Represented biological mother against a Petition filed by paternal grandmother for visitation. Successful at trial and again at the Court of Appeals. (ARS 25-409)

Juvenile law

Arson and an Online Confession

N/A

OUTCOME: A GREAT result in the trial court...unfortunately I was disappointed to learn that he has since been arrested twice since we successfully defended the case.

Some time ago, I represented a teenager in a highly publicized arson case. My client, who was 15 at the time, was accused of burning down three (3) houses and a number of cars in an established North ... Phoenix neighborhood. The original damage estimate for the property was in excess of $2 million dollars. The child’s parents, who were in the country on H1 Visas, hired me when the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office began procedures to transfer their son to the adult system so that he could be fully prosecuted for the series of arson fires. As his defense lawyer, it was my job to keep my client in the Juvenile Court where we he could both get treatment and not be exposed to a prison sentence that exceeded his 18th birthday. We successfully avoided the transfer and convinced the Court that keeping the child in the Juvenile Court was the best option. (Notably, with arson crimes it is common to find that the accused suffered from some significant childhood trauma triggering serious mental health issues. This was a major factor for the Court’s decision.) In this case, the kid’s parents, who both had graduate degrees and appeared worldly, were completely blindsided by their son’s transgressions and clearly did not understand the extent of his mental health challenges. Fortunately both a forensic psychologist and a psychiatrist agreed that there were mental health issues warranting keeping the kid in the juvenile system. Years later, most people remember the case because of the extraordinary damage caused by the fires, but few know that the arson string was stopped as a result of a posting on MySpace.com and the actions of another parent who insisted on monitoring her child’s web activities. As much as this is a story about oblivious and arguably negligent parents, it is also a story about a vigilant mother who monitored her son’s web activity and called the police when she realized what she was witnessing. Yes, my client made a comment about the arsons on his friend’s MySpace page and the monitoring mother thought it was consistent with what she had been reading in the newspaper. When the police knocked on his door to ask if he knew about the incidents, he admitted his involvement. (Yes…had he simply invoked his right to remain silent, this string of arsons would most likely have gone without an arrest.)

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