There are many questions lawyers ask when defending a client charged with Driving While Intoxicated (DWI): was there probable cause for the initial stop by police? Did the officer correctly administer a roadside sobriety test? Was the test used subject to false positives?
But during a recent case in the New York City borough of the Bronx, the only question the jury wanted answered was: were the officers who stopped the defendant involved in the recent NYPD ticket fixing scandal?
As the jury learned during the case, the officers who pulled over lawyer Steven LoPresti had been accused of fixing traffic tickets for friends and relatives. Apparently, that's all the jury need to know because LoPresti was acquitted in less than an hour.
Jurors later told reporters that they believed the officers' integrity and truthfulness was suspect after finding out they had broken the law themselves.
The ticket-fixing scandal may involve as many as several hundred police officers, according to news reports. Once a person received a ticket, he or she would ask a person on the force for helping in getting rid of the tickets. Officers would receive gifts, such as Yankees' tickets, or cash to make the ticket disappear.
The police union has hired a lawyer to address the allegations and represent some officer defendants. The NYPD police superintendent has decried the allegations and vowed an investigation into the matter.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, worry that many cases that hinge on police testimony may be in jeopardy because of juries' current tendency to discount officers' testimony, or even to assume that officers are lying. At least one other case, an attempted murder charge, has resulted in an acquittal that jurors acknowledged could be blamed at least in part on their unwillingness to believe officers' testimony about the case because of a ticket scandal.
If you have been charged with a DWI, speak to an experienced criminal defense attorney in your area as soon as possible to better understand the options available to you. Each case is different, and you will want to completely investigate the facts surrounding your stop. You may be able to show that the police did not follow proper procedures when they made the arrest.
