WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS OF OWI

You are innocent and charged with OWI.  You should either get a dismissal of the charge before a trial, or a unanimous jury verdict at trial of “not guilty” which in legal terms is called an acquittal.  I’ve had jury acquittals on breath tests as high as .185, which is more than twice the legal limit, and on breath tests as low as .06, which is less than the legal limit of .08.  Yes, sometimes prosecutors will file an OWI charge even if you blow less than .08.  And yes, the law allows them to do that, in their all powerful discretion.  Your case should never get to trial if the officer did not do his job correctly.  Many times the officer fails in some respect during the administration of these tests.  The key to most acquittals is that the client gets to a lawyer’s office almost immediately after arrest.

Here is what you do when you find yourself arrested and charged with OWI and you are innocent.  First, stop talking.  You will never win an argument with a police officer.  You will never convince the officer to let you go.  I realize you believe that you passed all the field sobriety “tests” but those tests are designed specifically for you to fail.  They are not tests at all.  Even if you had a 90% success rate, you failed.  Even if you had a 98% success rate, you failed.  So shut up.  All you are doing is hurting your case and making it more likely that you will eventually be wrongfully convicted.  Next, assume that every phone call you make from the jail will be played at your trial.  Don’t explain to your wife that you’d only had one beer.  Don’t ask your dad to go pick up your car and that the beer in the car belonged to your friends.  If you need legal advice, talk to a lawyer.  Most of the time, talking to family and friends doesn’t help the case- they are not lawyers and do not understand the intricacies of the OWI law.

Being charged with OWI is a very serious crime in Iowa.  If convicted, you will lose many rights, privileges, liberties and a considerable sum of money.  This means jail time, several thousand dollars, the inability to drive for a considerable period of time which will likely cost you your job, and additional freedoms while on probation such as the ability to enter a restaurant for at least one year, or to have to get permission from your probation officer to leave your county of residence on each occasion.  You will also lose your hunting privileges, among other things.

Any lawyer can walk you through a standard OWI guilty plea.  But not every lawyer understands the OWI law and recognizes when an innocent person has been charged.  Do they understand the horizontal gaze nystagmus test?  Do they understand the proper basis for conducting a traffic stop?  Do they know if marijuana impairs driving?  Do they understand fermentation of blood samples?  Do they understand breathalyzer inaccuracies?  Do they understand retroactive extrapolation?  Have they reviewed the OWI prosecution training that an officer completes at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy?