A Georgia Supreme Court ruling earlier this year has created a legal trick by which drunk drivers are getting key evidence against them thrown out - by arguing they were too drunk.
Drivers are convincing judges that they were not thinking clearly when they agreed to take the voluntary breath, blood, or urine tests, due to intoxication.
And a Channel 2 Action News investigation found the drivers can still go to court and plead not guilty later, after the prosecutors' best evidence has been suppressed.
“It certainly is a ruling that’s going to impact every DUI case,” said defense attorney Mike Hawkins, who doesn’t see it as a trick, but a sound constitutional argument.
“Think about consent in any context, it has to be knowing and intelligently given,” said Hawkins, which he argues a driver cannot do when they’re intoxicated.
Attorney Lance Tyler was the first to win this argument for his client John Williams, who was pulled over for a supected DUI in 2012. The case went all the way to Georgia’s Supreme Court, which ruled in March that Williams may not have “actually” consented to giving his blood, and that Gwinnett State Court Judge Joseph Iannazzone should reconsider his earlier decision not to suppress the results of his blood test.
“The defendant wasn’t actually capable of an informed waiver of his constitutional rights,” Tyler argued to Iannazzone in September. A week later, Iannazzone kicked out Williams’ blood test, along with the blood alcohol concentration results (BAC) for five other drivers whose cases he’d heard.
“If a DUI defense lawyer is not raising the ‘Williams issue’ I frankly think it’s malpractice,” said Hawkins.
If it sounds ridiculous for a defense attorney to argue that their client was so intoxicated they were unable to make a sound legal decision about consenting to a DUI test, it’s equally strange to hear a prosecutor argue that the driver wasn’t that drunk.
“You would think that that’s absurd, right?” said Gwinnett County Solicitor Rosanna Szabo, who’s office has been the most impacted, mainly due to Iannazzone’s interpretation of the Williams ruling.
To read more about this ruling, click here and here.
About the Author
