Michigan Drunk Driving Defense Categories

Hi, my name is Patrick Barone of the Barone Defense Firm located in Birmingham, Michigan.  We have four lawyers at my firm and our entire practice is devoted to the defense of drinking drivers.  Over the last 20 years I have determined that there are basically nine different categories of defenses that you can use to successfully defend your clients’ drunk driving cases.  Before we talk about the defenses though, what I want to talk to you about first is the importance of a thorough investigation of your client’s case.  I am firmly of the belief that in order to defend your client’s case appropriately, you have to investigate the case appropriately.  If you rely just on the police report and what the prosecutor gives you, you really are only getting one part or one piece of the story. 

We’ve all heard that there are two sides to every story and what I’m really thinking is, “although there are two sides to the story, there really is the police version of what happened and then there is the more detailed client version of what happened.”  If you put those together, then you really have the truth of the client’s case.  Before you get to the point of being able to really tell your client’s story, which is what happens in trial.  If you’ve ever seen any of my seminars in the past you’ve heard me say that a trial is a story telling battle.  That’s exactly what it is.  You need to make sure that your story, the story that you tell, is much more compelling and convincing than the prosecutor’s story.  When I say story I don’t mean that it’s fictional.  The word story has certain connotations.  When I say story what I mean is really a full version of what occurred. 

It’s important for you to spend the time to learn from the client through their eyes and ears what happened with the case.  You can’t do that by simply reviewing the police report.  Of course you need to look at the police report, you need to obtain the video tapes and review those.  You have to get all of the documents and things that the state is required to keep in order to convince the jury and to convince you and your client that the test result, if there is one, is a reliable one.  You need to look at all of those things and you need to study them and to take the time to do that. 

You also have to take the time to learn from your client what happened.  The best way for you to do that is to have a very lengthy, detailed, questionnaire that you should provide to your client immediately after being retained.  In my book, “Defending Drinking Driver’s”, there is in the resources and supplemental materials an example of such a questionnaire.  You are welcome to use that questionnaire in your practice and the advantage of it is, it’ll save you time and it will save your client time in actually writing down as soon after it happened as possible, their recollection of the events.

Once you have the report and you have the questionnaire, then it’s time to meet with your client and really discuss with your client from their perspective what it was like on the day or night of their arrest.  There’s no substitute for actually going to the scene of the arrest, or of the stop, and find out what that road looks like.  Take note of the overhead lighting, of the traffic patterns, try to go at the same time that the arrest occurred.  If you can and if it was in the day time go in the day time.  If it occurred during the night time, go in the night time.  You want to see what the traffic patterns are like during the time that your client was actually arrested.  Use your ears and listen to what the road sounds are like, take a look around, see what the slope is like.  All of this is designed to help you really understand the case.

Imagine if you were a fictional twin brother or sister of the police officer and you were actually there doing the arrest, what it would be like as the twin brother or sister to cross-examine that person.  Think how vivid your cross-examination would be if you were actually the person that made the arrest or the person being arrested.  The second best way to become that person is to spend the time, and what I’m referring to in sort of an abstract way, are some of the techniques and some of the tools that we teach at the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan at the Trial Lawyers College which is based on psycho drama.  In the materials that I have for the seminar, for this webinar, you will see some of the psycho dramatic techniques that can be used to help you better understand your case from the client’s perspective.  Armed with that information you’re ready to start spotting defenses and each of the defenses will be in one of the following nine categories.

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