The defendant was arrested by the Port St. Lucie Police Department for his 3rd DUI, a felony charge. The defendant, a non-citizen of the United States, was facing 5 years in prison, a felony conviction and certain deportation back to Haiti. The Firm worked tirelessly to protect our client. According to police reports, the defendant was first noticed by police when he drove up behind a sergeant’s vehicle at a high rate of speed. The Sergeant pulled over and allowed the defendant to pass. The sergeant began to follow the defendant and observed the defendant “driving all over the road.” After pulling the defendant over, the sergeant smelled a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage and believed the defendant was “wasted.” The sergeant called for a DUI officer to investigate. The DUI officer noted that the defendant not only had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emanating from his breath, but also had slurred and mumbled speech, and watery eyes. The officer requested the defendant to perform field sobriety exercises and noted that they performed poorly and had an “extremely difficult time following instructions” on the first four exercises. The officer also noted that the defendant refused to complete the fifth exercise as well as refusing to submit to a breath test. The defendant’s poorly performed exercises and difficulty in following instructions were captured on the officer’s dashboard camera. The Firm’s Treasure Coast Attorney immediately began formulating a defense. First, the attorney recognized the client’s primary language was Creole. However, the video revealed the officer never attempted to call for a Creole speaking officer, despite the client’s repeated statements that he did not understand the exercises. Furthermore, through investigation, the Firm’s attorney was able to discover the arresting officer was fluent in French, the language Creole is derived from. Yet the officer chose not to communicate in French. Additionally, the firm’s attorney discovered that prior to the defendant performing the exercises, he had informed the officer of a severe knee injury. The evidence revealed the officer clearly discounted this information in his assessment. Lastly, the firm’s attorney discovered audio conversations between the sergeant and officer that suggested they performed their investigation with bias and prejudice towards our client. The firm’s attorney brought these facts in front of a jury. The client was found Not Guilty of Felony DUI.
DUI & Criminal Division
