A Nice Drive to Cecil County, And An Even Better Drive Back

I was contacted almost a year ago by a lawyer whose client got hammered at her Administrative Hearing.  It was a second offense, and she was accused of refusing the breath test for the second time.  She wanted a blood test, but it was not required in her situation.  At the Hearing the lawyer argued the blood test request and lost as he should.  He overlooked the denial of counsel issue.  I appealed the case and got it reversed because the first lawyer did request the police officer and instead of granting the request the ALJ summarily decided to deny it, and then accept everything the trooper wrote in his reports.  Once we got the tape, the State dismissed the DUI because the SFSTS were not properly instructed.  Today was the MVA Hearing on the remand.  The trooper was not too happy to be there and claimed he did not know the State dumped the case because he screwed up.  In fact, the prosecutor was told the trooper was going to be retrained on how to do the SFSTS.  He never was or he forgot.  He testified today that my client did ask for a lawyer, but since the lawyer’s number was not in her phone, he was not going to give her a phone book to look it up or a phone to use to call.   As Roger Clemons said about his good friend Andy Petite, “he misremembered” that he locked her phone in her car and had the car towed.  He also was either not trained or “misremembered” that he is required to provide a phone book and a phone upon a request for counsel.  He saw the writing on the wall and left before the decision was announced that there was No Action.  The Circuit Court judge required the client to drive with the interlock pending the Appeal and the Remand Hearing, so she had the Interlock for 11 months.  To her credit, she had no violations, and no recriminations about having to install, pay, and use it for 11 months.  On Thursday she goes and gets a regular license and removes the Interlock.