August 9, 2016 -Haverhill District Court
After a long day of activities with his daughter, including her first Tee ball game, Client couldn’t complete the drive home safely. He had dropped his daughter off with a family member and as he made his way back to Haverhill he was simply too tired. When he pulled into the parking lot of a Starbucks to take a power nap he had no idea what was in store for him. He was woken up by an officer shining his flashlight in his face and not less than three police cruisers, a fire truck and an ambulance. To make matters worse, client was on probation for an unrelated offense. Witnesses had called the police claiming that Client had driven into their fence, knocking it over, then passed out behind the wheel.
Lawyer’s first job was to successfully advocate to the court to reprobate Client, despite the fact that he had picked up a new case. Lawyer successfully handled Client’s probation violation then began to chip away at the Commonwealth’s case. Motions were filed and several hearings followed. Client and Attorney were optimistic that the Commonwealth’s case, a seemingly week one, would be dismissed at the motion to suppress hearing. It was not. The judge credited the police officer’s testimony and the case inched closer to trial. Client was very eager to move this case forward quickly. He needed to get back on the road, for work and for his family.
On the first trial date, much to everyone’s satisfaction, the case called. A jury was empaneled and client would finally get his day in court. On cross examination Lawyer finally had an opportunity to ask the Commonwealth’s star witness some important questions. Prior to this date the witness had successfully avoided Attorney’s investigator. On the stand witness admitted that he was at a party when he claimed to have seen Client driving and that members of the party were drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. The jury saw through his questionable testimony and returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty after only a short time. The Not Guilty verdict was entered but the fight was not yet over. Lawyer filed a motion to reinstate Client’s license and brought the matter in front of the trial judge. Without the order the registry of motor vehicles could outright refuse to reinstate client’s license. The judge signed the order which would force the RMV to reinstate Client’s right to drive.
