DWI Mistakes

Published on: October 18, 2010

How To Gut Your Own Case: Collin County District Clerks Case

The Short Answer? Admit to doing the exact same thing the people charged did.

I have never had a case where a prosecutor has stood in front of a large group and admitted to driving while intoxicated — or any other crime for that matter.

But that seems to be exactly what the elected District Attorney in Collin County recently did. No, he did not admit driving while intoxicated, but instead stood in front of the county commissioners and asked for assistance on properly "coding" his Hi-Five Paid Time Off program. A program that on its face seems to be doing the same thing he accuses Six Collin County District Clerks of doing. Taking time off from work with the permission of their supervisors, but putting in with the county that they were actually present so they can be paid.

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Published on: September 7, 2007

Pitfalls of Testifying in DWI cases

By Hunter Biederman

In a recent blog post by blogger Robert Guest, he posts about some of the techniques taught to prosecutors when cross examining a defendant in a DWI case. These are the same techniques taught to me while working as a prosecutor. He reports from old manuals that he has:

Today’s subchapter is called "Crossing the Defendant", it should have been called "guilty until proven innocent." Prosecutors are taught to spin or ignore evidence of innocence.

– ADA’s are taught to work out a "time line" of that day’s events with the defendant. Why? Because there is "no credible way the defendant could have kept track of that, so you will either succeed in showing their no memory of times, or he has an overdeveloped memory."

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Published on: July 25, 2007

Humilated from a DWI? Ask this guy…

By Hunter Biederman

In a recent case in New Mexico, a citizen was arrested, tired, and acquitted of DWI. Despite his being found not guilty by a jury of his peers, and after a clerk "checked the wrong box" saying guilty, his picture and name was published in the newspaper.

Oh yes, a retraction was printed, but I’m quite sure it was too little too late for him. The interesting thing is, I found this article online, on an NBC news site, which not only published his name, but also published his PICTURE as well! Apparently they don’t care about his privacy either….

Here is the story, but in order to not perpetuate the wrong that was done to this man, I have removed his name and his picture.

Man mistakenly published on DWI offender list

A man who was never found guilty for DWI had his picture published in the local paper saying he was guilty of drunk driving.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, was arrested last August and blew at or above the legal limit, according to court records. XXXXXXXXXXX fought the case and was found "not guilty," in February.

A Metropolitan Court clerk made a mistake and marked guilty next to the DWI charge days after XXXXX was acquitted.

XXXXXXXXX works for the Federal Government on Kirtland Air Force Base and has been trying to get higher security clearance.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX said, "I’m gonna have to do a lot of explaining I shouldn’t have never had to do."

For two months XXXXX was officially a convict, until the mistake was found and fixed.

During the time XXXXXXXXXXXXX was mistakenly labeled "guilty" his name was put into the mix of guilty faces to be published by Albuquerque police.

Metropolitan Court spokeswoman Janet Blair said, "We really regret Mr. XXXXXXXXXXXX had to go through this…and we don’t understand why such outdated information was used when correct information has been available for three months."

The Albuquerque Police Department plans to issue a retraction in the next few months.