JURY TRIAL: Felony OWI 3rd Not Guilty

This was one a bit of a nail-biter. My client was charged with OWI 3rd, and we ended up before one of the toughest circuit court judges in Wayne County.
 
Client was stopped for speeding and weaving along a hilly stretch of road, with the officer claiming that he could see the vehicle traveling in and out of his lane of travel.  He was arrested after submitting to field sobriety tests and a PBT.  His Datamaster test result was over the legal limit.
 
I held the preliminary examination. In OWI 3rd cases, the preliminary examination is critical because it is the only chance a client might have prior to going to trial to cross-examine the officer. Unfortunately, I don't always have all of the evidence by the time the preliminary examination is scheduled, and some judges will refuse to adjourn the preliminary examination. This worked out perfectly in this case!
 
At the preliminary examination, the arresting officer testified to the following:
 
  Q. And you observed [my client] then for this, what 52 minutes?
  A. Yes.
  Q. Consistently?
  A. Yes.
  Q. Without interruption?
  A. Yes.
 
Videotapes that were later retrieved from the police that proved, unequivocally, that the officer entered and exited the Datamaster testing area repeatedly, did not ever engage in any observation of my client, and–at best–engaged in a four minute observation period with his head turned away from my client almost the entire time. My client was prepared to testify on these preliminary matters to show why and how the Datamaster result was unreliable. 
 
The extremely tough circuit court judge suppressed the breath test, and we proceeded to jury trial without a chemical test.
 
My retired police officer / expert witness Tony Corroto and I spent days preparing for this jury trial. If my client was convicted, he was going to lose everything. He was a small business owner, and he was going to lose his business as well as his house if he was convicted. Tony and I literally measured the entire stretch of road to time the video to the vehicle's rate of speed. We determined that the car was never speeding. We photographed the stretches of road where the hills and curvature of the roadway would have obstructed the officer's view of fog lines and lane markers.  We pulled out all the stops.
 
In the middle of trial, the Wayne County prosecutor's office offered a second offense. My client thought about this, and he said, "No, I think you've beaten them."  I warned him that this was a very serious judge who might send him to prison, but he was convinced. Before I could convey my client's refusal of the offer to the assistant prosecutor, the assistant prosecutor came back and said that the offer had been rescinded.  (There was never any good reason given for the prosecutor's office to refuse a decent deal on this case. Nothing about this case was outrageous or compelling, and I can normally work out a deal on hard cases.  This was not a hard case.)
 
We wrapped up testimony, with Tony killing their case. The jury came back with a big fat NOT GUILTY verdict.