criminal defense attorney qualifications

Some lawyers can say...

• They are Board Certified in Criminal Law.
• They have tried more than 80 jury trials.
• They worked more than nine years as a prosecutor.
• They served as a Chief Prosecutor in a felony district court.
• They have taught trial advocacy at the University of Texas Law School.
• They have tried jury trials in both State and Federal Court.
• They worked as a briefing attorney for a US District Judge.
• They are Certified to administer Field Sobriety Tests, having completed the same course that DWI enforcement officers must take.
• They have tried a breath test case to a jury and won.

I CAN SAY ALL OF THOSE THINGS

How does all of this experience help you? Simple: I know the system inside and out. I know what prosecutors are looking for, how they assess a case, and what motivates them to offer the best plea bargains. If we can't strike a deal with the prosecutor, I won't waste my time - or your money - on defenses I know won't work. I will defend you aggressively and professionally.

Board Certified -- Criminal Law -- Texas Board of Legal Specialization

Criminal Law Blog

February 07, 2010

Your criminal defense lawyer should be able to take probable cause affidavits in DWI cases apart, piece by piece.  The piece I want to take apart today is the part that says that the driver had a “strong,” “moderate,” or “faint” odor of alcohol on his breath. 

If you’ve seen a probable cause affidavit, you’ve probably noticed that there are checkboxes for the officer to mark regarding the driver’s breath. 

There is a paper entitled “Police officers’ detection of breath odors from alcohol ingestion” written by Herbert Moskowitz, Marcelline Burns, and Susan Ferguson.  Marcelline Burns is the government’s “go to” gal in putting together scientific papers that favor the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests.  If you want to read the paper, click here.

The abstract to the paper says “[e]stimate of BAC [Blood Alcohol Concentration] level failed to rise above random guesses.  These results demonstrate that even under optimum laboratory conditions, breath odor detection is unreliable, which may account for the low detection rate found in roadside realistic conditions. 

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