Recently a former client asked us to represent him in a Driving Under Restraint (DUR) case. Several months earlier, the client unknowingly caused his driver's license to be revoked by pleading guilty to a second Driving While Ability Impaired (DWAI) case.
In the case we were asked to handle, the client had been driving to work when he was stopped by a police officer. The officer said he made the stop because the year and month stickers on our client's rear license plate were obscured by his bumper. We had our client take pictures of his license plate from different distances. The pictures showed that the stickers on the license plate were visible and clearly legible, as required by statute.
When the case went to court, we provided the pictures to the District Attorney who agreed that the officer had stopped our client without a reasonable suspicion and dismissed the case. As a result of our efforts, the client avoided a mandatory jail sentence and an extension of his revocation.
If you have a question about this or some other legal issue, please give us a call so we can discuss your situation.
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We recently had a successful outcome in a DUI case we handled in Denver County. Earlier this year, our client was stopped by a Denver Police officer in a parking lot in LoDo. The officer indicated this was a high crime area and he thought it was suspicious to see a car parked in the lot with the engine running at 2:45 am. As the officer began to approach, our client backed up and began to drive away.
When the officer contacted our client, he smelled an odor of alcohol. The officer said that our client had bloodshot watery eyes and slurred speech. He had our client perform field sobriety tests which he said he failed. A breath test was performed with a BAC of .076. Our client was arrested and charged with Driving While Ability Impaired and Driving Under Restraint.
We filed a Motion to Suppress Evidence. A hearing was recently held in Denver County Court. We argued on our client's behalf that the stop was illegal and all evidence that was obtained after the stop should be suppressed. The court agreed and found that the officer was acting strictly on a hunch and did not have any objective, specific facts that our client had or was going to commit a crime. All of the evidence was suppressed and the District Attorney dismissed the case.
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