Houston DWI Case, state of Texas v Sanchez. The cops stated that they found my client passed out behind the wheel at a stop light and he sat through three light cycles. Then they claim that when they finally woke him, he became belligerent and verbally abusive and started to actually assault the officers.
On video, at the station after the arrest, the defendant walks into the investigation room looking perfectly composed and calm, acting very polite to the officers who are questioning him. He fails the one leg stand miserably by hopping all around the entire room looking like he’s on a pogo stick or something.
He answers all questions respectfully never raising his voice and never being uncooperative. He then agrees to give a breath sample in response to the officer’s request. Then the officer states that as soon as he walks out of the room, he again, become highly agitated and aggressive and they almost had to taser him to get him under control. This is completely inconsistent with the demeanor we see on video and it’s a stretch to imagine that the person you see on the video could actually bring himself to be aggressive.
I questioned the officers about why they didn’t bring in any other video evidence from the other parts in the jail to show proof of the belligerent behavior. Their response, which the jury didn’t buy for a second, was that there are no video camera anywhere else in the entire jail or police station.
We got a big “not guilty”. We won this case not because there was weak evidence of intoxication. There was actually quite of bit of damaging evidence of intoxication. The reason the jury came back with a not guilty verdict was because they didn’t believe the officer’s testimony about several ancillary issues but then formed the opinion that the officers were not credible. I’ve actually won many cases where the defendant looks clearly intoxicated, but the officer exaggerates on the stand or flat out lies and the jury knows it. A less than honest witness for the State can cause a not guilty verdict where there was plenty of evidence of guilt. So many cops think they have to be over the top and try to help “make” a guilty verdict happen, but many times when they do, it backfires and they jury holds it against them. The officer ends up losing his case that was already won before he even showed up.
