Laughing Lawyer in Lake Ridge
Sometimes, the fire department makes me think of my job as an attorney. I deal exclusively in criminal law, so it is a sure bet that sometimes we see stuff on the street that will end up in court. Take, for instance, a little call from Sunday morning...
There I was, snoozing away in the firehouse at 0230 when the station alerts went off. OK, as this blog progresses, I will tell you more about this firehouse, but for now, suffice it to say that I am new in this house and the wake-up alert system totally freaks me out. So the bells go off, and I find myself standing up in my cubicle not knowing exactly where I am. I stumble down to the engine, with my normal bleary-eyed condition enhanced by my not-quite-sufficiently-lubricated contact lenses sticking all over the place. The call is for an auto accident in a residential neighborhood. The ambulance is about a block ahead of us and they mark on the scene first. Oddly, we come up on a wrecked car in some yard and find no ambulance. The ambulance is around a corner with another wrecked car, occupied by a drunken party-girl, still plainly dressed for going out. Unfortunately for her, the series of little lacerations on her forehead have caused her to spill blood all over her preppy little sweater. OK, so that's the scene.
As I stumble out of the pumper and start doing my "check hazards" thing, this girl starts wailing about "Oh God! Where is my friend?" Now, I have to tell you, it was fucking freezing out that night, I was a sleep-deprived wreck, this party chick was just drunk enough to enhance her annoyance factor, and my contacts were still not right, but despite all of that, I realized that this girl was making a serious error in her play at avoiding her drunk driving charge.
You see, dear reader, there are a few ways to beat a DUI charge. I know most of them. I am not going to tip my hand too much when I say that the "The other (missing) guy/driver" defense is a time-tested defense ploy that is appropriate in a situation like party chick found herself in. It is hard to beat, if executed correctly. It goes like this: In an unwitnessed accident, smart drivers might say something like: "Gee whiz, officer, I was riding passenger because, clearly, I am too drunk to drive, and the dude who was driving me home said.....Hey, wait! Where did he go? He was here a couple of minutes ago. Gosh, I hope that he is alright. No, I didn't catch his name, and no, I don't really know what he looked like. I can't believe that mother-f'er left me hanging like this!" This leaves the police with a pseudo-plausible story where you are not the driver and are innocently sloshed (NOTE: I do not endorse this technique, I am only reciting it factually). The trouble was, the evidence at the scene (blood, hair, broken glass, seat belt damage, etc.) put her alone in the car; and her execution of the ruse was terrible. While griping about her friend to a police officer, she put herself driving the car and made a bunch of statements about being drunk. Ooops! I had to laugh, because this was the worst try at this ploy ever.
She was really tenacious, though. I considered for a moment that perhaps she really did have a friend. Nah! She knew she was in trouble and was acting like it. Just to be safe, I checked the paper and there weren't any missing young ladies from Lake Ridge on Monday. The aide on the ambulance said that the patient kept on complaining about losing her friend the whole way to the hospital, but that the cops found no evidence whatsoever that there was another person involved. I can only assume that this girl will end up a customer for one of my attorney brethren, whether it be for a DUI, or for knocking that first car up into someone's yard and driving off, or both. In the meantime, the better bet is to not drive drunk. You can avoid all of the legal muckety-muck and keep your blood on the inside.
There I was, snoozing away in the firehouse at 0230 when the station alerts went off. OK, as this blog progresses, I will tell you more about this firehouse, but for now, suffice it to say that I am new in this house and the wake-up alert system totally freaks me out. So the bells go off, and I find myself standing up in my cubicle not knowing exactly where I am. I stumble down to the engine, with my normal bleary-eyed condition enhanced by my not-quite-sufficiently-lubricated contact lenses sticking all over the place. The call is for an auto accident in a residential neighborhood. The ambulance is about a block ahead of us and they mark on the scene first. Oddly, we come up on a wrecked car in some yard and find no ambulance. The ambulance is around a corner with another wrecked car, occupied by a drunken party-girl, still plainly dressed for going out. Unfortunately for her, the series of little lacerations on her forehead have caused her to spill blood all over her preppy little sweater. OK, so that's the scene.
As I stumble out of the pumper and start doing my "check hazards" thing, this girl starts wailing about "Oh God! Where is my friend?" Now, I have to tell you, it was fucking freezing out that night, I was a sleep-deprived wreck, this party chick was just drunk enough to enhance her annoyance factor, and my contacts were still not right, but despite all of that, I realized that this girl was making a serious error in her play at avoiding her drunk driving charge.
You see, dear reader, there are a few ways to beat a DUI charge. I know most of them. I am not going to tip my hand too much when I say that the "The other (missing) guy/driver" defense is a time-tested defense ploy that is appropriate in a situation like party chick found herself in. It is hard to beat, if executed correctly. It goes like this: In an unwitnessed accident, smart drivers might say something like: "Gee whiz, officer, I was riding passenger because, clearly, I am too drunk to drive, and the dude who was driving me home said.....Hey, wait! Where did he go? He was here a couple of minutes ago. Gosh, I hope that he is alright. No, I didn't catch his name, and no, I don't really know what he looked like. I can't believe that mother-f'er left me hanging like this!" This leaves the police with a pseudo-plausible story where you are not the driver and are innocently sloshed (NOTE: I do not endorse this technique, I am only reciting it factually). The trouble was, the evidence at the scene (blood, hair, broken glass, seat belt damage, etc.) put her alone in the car; and her execution of the ruse was terrible. While griping about her friend to a police officer, she put herself driving the car and made a bunch of statements about being drunk. Ooops! I had to laugh, because this was the worst try at this ploy ever.
She was really tenacious, though. I considered for a moment that perhaps she really did have a friend. Nah! She knew she was in trouble and was acting like it. Just to be safe, I checked the paper and there weren't any missing young ladies from Lake Ridge on Monday. The aide on the ambulance said that the patient kept on complaining about losing her friend the whole way to the hospital, but that the cops found no evidence whatsoever that there was another person involved. I can only assume that this girl will end up a customer for one of my attorney brethren, whether it be for a DUI, or for knocking that first car up into someone's yard and driving off, or both. In the meantime, the better bet is to not drive drunk. You can avoid all of the legal muckety-muck and keep your blood on the inside.
posted by DTXMATT12 at 8:11 PM
3 Comments:
Okay, signs you are growing old...and both of them happened to ME tonight.
1. You are doing introductions at a Master's class and the vast majority of the people are quoting college graduation dates in a different century than yours.
2. You read a comment about being annoyed by a drink party girl, as opposed to seeking them out, and you agree. Sigh.
And my favorite ploy is to pull out a beer on scene, be drinking it when everyone arrives, and say, "I was SO stressed by this wreck, I needed a drink to cope with it."
Chris -
I saw kids try that "needed a drink after the accident" ploy when I ran rescue in college. Unfortunately, they discovered the hard way that New York changed the law so that whatever BAC you tested for after and accident is presumed to have been there at the time of the accident, so drinking after the fact only makes things worse!
GEEK:
(Let me put on my lawyer hat for a second) On the "I was so upset by the accident that I drank" subject, In Virginia we are having problems with our DUI "presumptions" with regard to BAC's and intoxication. The defense bar has had some success in convincing certain judges that "presuming" anything from a BAC is unconstitutional on the basis that it violates that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing. Other courts in the Commonwealth have responded by saying that intoxication is a "permissible inference" rather than a "presumed" outcome. This sort of adds up to the opposite of the New York solution. Thanks for stopping by.
DTXMATT12
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