100s of Cases Dismissed

Somerset, WI driver charged with OWI/PAC-3rd with a minor child in the vehicle, which turns a “normal” third offense from a misdemeanor to a felony. After this client’s arrest, he agreed to a blood test when the law enforcement officers asked. Under Wisconsin law, when a person submits to a law enforcement blood test, they also have the right to additional and independent testing upon request. This client did request an independent test, but the police never acted on that request. Attorney Nero filed a motion to suppress (a legal word for “throw out”) the police’s blood test because the client was denied his right to additional testing. The judge GRANTED the motion to suppress. Without any persuasive evidence of intoxication, the prosecution agreed to amend to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct. The client paid court costs, but did not go to jail, go on probation, pay a fine, suffer a license revocation, or need to undergo an alcohol assessment.

A Somerset, WI driver, charged with OWI/PAC-3rd with a minor, faced a felony upgrade. Attorney Nero successfully suppressed the police blood test due to denied independent testing, leading to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. The client avoided jail, probation, fines, license revocation, and alcohol assessment.

Ellsworth, WI driver charged with OWI/PAC-2nd offense with an alleged refusal. This young man refused the request for a blood draw because he insisted he was not the driver of the vehicle. In fact, when the police arrived at the scene, where his vehicle had been driven into the ditch, his friend was in the driver’s seat. There were other passengers as well, each of whom gave conflicting and confusing accounts of who was, in fact, the driver. Since the State could not prove that this client was the driver, Attorney Nero convinced them to dismiss the case in exchange for a plea to the noncriminal refusal case, so the client never spent a day in jail.

Mondovi, WI driver charged with OWI/PAC-1st offense and speeding. This driver was a truck driver and simply could not accept any type of OWI conviction. Attorney Nero litigated a series of pretrial motions, which were denied. The case was set for trial. The facts were difficult. The client had been driving 90+ miles per hour on his motorcycle, allegedly failed field sobriety tests, and blew about a 0.13 on the Intoximeter. The case was set for jury trial but rescheduled on the morning of trial because the arresting officer had a stomach ache. When the new trial date came around, again, that same morning, the prosecution discovered it had issues getting witnesses to the courthouse. Because the prosecution was afraid of an appeal on the pretrial motions, and because they failed to get their witnesses to court twice in a row, the case settled for a reckless driving in the hallway, with the jury assembled in the courtroom.

Turtle Lake, WI driver charged with OWI/PAC-1st offense. She crossed the centerline and nearly caused a head-on collision with a police officer, which is not an ideal start to a case. She went through field sobriety testing and had her blood drawn, which showed an alcohol concentration of approximately 0.30 – almost four times the legal limit. Attorney Nero took the case to municipal trial. Halfway through the trial, during Attorney Nero’s cross-examination of the arresting officer, the Defense learned some extremely favorable information. The officer did not testify to facts needed to support his request for field sobriety tests in the first place. Attorney Nero asked for a recess to discuss the issue with the prosecutor in the hallway. The prosecutor realized there were issues and agreed to reduce the case to a reckless driving on the spot.

River Falls, WI driver charged with OWI/PAC-1st offense. This was truly the type of case you don’t see every day. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the law enforcement officers were careful about disinfecting the Intoximeter breath testing machine area of their jail. The problem with using disinfectants, however, is that many contain alcohol. The Intoximeter aborted at least two testing sequences because alcohol from Lysol spray was contaminating its “blank checks,” which have to come back at 0.000 for a testing sequence to be completed. Finally, a testing sequence was able to be finished; however, if the Lysol contaminated two sequences before this, the risk that it continued to contaminate and artificially inflate the breath test results for this client were too great to ignore. The prosecutor agreed with Attorney Nero’s arguments, decided not to fight a losing battle, and amended the charges to reckless driving. The client was thrilled.