Perseverance gets Fairfax criminal lawyer’s client a wet reckless & night in jail converted from second DWI arrest within a month of first DUI conviction

Perseverance can go a long way in advocating for Virginia criminal defendants. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer I recently obtained a conversion to wet and a night in jail from a Virginia driving under the influence of alcohol prosecution with an allegedly elevated blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.17, prosecuted under Virginia Code § 18.2-266. This Fairfax prosecution commenced with an alleged incident date only three months after a prior DWI arrest date that led to a conviction less than four weeks before our client was arrested in my case. If convicted of the charged count, my client would have been jailed for a mandatory minimum of thirty days, for twenty days for a second DWI offense within five years of each other, and an additional ten days in jail for an elevated BAC between 0.15 to 0.20. On top of that, this involved a collision with a parked car with serious property damage, which increased the risk of more jail than the mandatory minimum, both due to the close proximity of the first and second DWI arrests and because of the collision.

Perseverance when the police officer wants a favorable defense outcome

In the middle of my courthouse discussion with my client about how to proceed with perseverance on his Fairfax DUI trial date (the second trail date, meaning this case was not getting postponed), the arresting police officer knocked on the door to the conference room where I was meeting my client. The law enforcement officer (LEO) emphasized that he was taken that my client’s mother is a schoolteacher. He wanted to help my client, and asked me to talk with him and the prosecutor to see what could be done. No sooner did I sit down at the table with the prosecutor, that the assistant commonwealth’s attorney started trotting out the last prosecutor’s plea offer on the last court date of DWI with a sentence of sixty days in jail suspending fifty-six days. I responded by providing documentation of my client’s self improvement steps involving completing a Virginia DMV-approved driver improvement class, completing a Mothers Against Drunk Driving Victim Impact Panel, and attending a few Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I pointed out that although my client denied any health issues to the police officer before starting field sobriety testing (FST) other than having an elevated body weight that can affect balance, and a visible crack on the windshield was caused by my client’s hitting the windshield. I told him that the incident video and additional evidence were favorable to the defense for obtaining a suppression of his arrest, particularly with the judge we had assigned to us for the day.

Why would a Fairfax police officer want consideration of a DWI defendant’s parent’s role as a county schoolteacher to favorably affect plea negotiations?

Virginia police and prosecutors are not always the adversaries that we think they are. Perseverance is vital. It is true that the arresting officer for this Fairfax DWI defense did not use the wet reckless driving phrase with the prosecutor, at least not initially. As a result, after the police officer said his piece I started pantomiming a person pulling in a fish caught on their hook. Eventually, the prosecutor starts sounding like he is going to reinstate the last court date’s plea offer of DWI with four days of jail suspended. Instead, the prosecutor made the same offer as the last court date, but switching DWI second offiense to wet reckless driving. The prosecutor mentioned four days in jail, but four days of jail meant an overnight of incarceration (4 days divided by two for non-mandatory jail time, minus one day for the arrest date).

How does my Fairfax criminal lawyer convince my judge to accept my plea deal?

The next stop was for our judge to approve this deal after our settlement negotiation perseverance. Not having asked to see my client’s driving record (which many Fairfax judges request for sentencing), the judge did not know how recent were my client’s first DUI arrest and conviction. The judge did not know that my client’s car had hit another car. The judge accepted our deal.

When your criminal case seems filled with hurdles, call Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz to pursue your best defense. For your free in-person initial confidential consultation with Jon Katz, call us at 703-383-1100, email info@BeatTheProsecution.com, and text 571-406-7268.