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A Sampling of Recent Dismissed Cases. While the goal for every case in our office is to have the charges dismissed, it can be very difficult to achieve because most of the cases are pre-screened by a district attorney before they are filed and thus the district attorney's office has an interest in seeing the case prosecuted. Nevertheless, there have been a number of cases that have been dismissed recently and following are a sampling of some of those cases. In a harassment domestic violence case, the alleged defendant was accused of slapping her husband. While at first blush, this seemed like a difficult case to defend against, because she admitted slapping her husband, the husband latter admitted that he had threatened her with bodily injury by revealing her residence to a family member she had fled from several years ago. After protracted negotiations with the district attorney's office, they finally agreed to dismiss the charges against the woman. In a DUI case, the results from the blood came back extraordinarily high, especially in comparison with the portable breath test taken at the science. We had our laboratory conduct a second sample test, and while the results came back over the legal limit, the results were significantly different from the first test which called into question the validity of the first test. Again, after prolonged negotiations with the district attorney's office, they dismissed the charges. In another harassment domestic violence case, the defendant was alleged to have made harassing phone calls to his ex-wife. It turns out she was retaliating against him for having previously filed harassment charges and, after listening to the phone calls the charges were dismissed. In another assault domestic violence case the defendant was accused of slapping her boyfriend. We maintained that her actions were in self-defense and gathered witness statements that supported this defense. Ultimately the district attorney dismissed the case.
Accusation of Sexual Assault. In another unusual case, a woman requested that a therapist who routinely gave massages, and had given her a prior massage, give her a massage. She first complained that he touched her breasts and then tried to take off her pants during the course of the massage, but the massage occurred in a public place and she failed to complain to the massage therapist that anything was wrong during the course of the massage. At trial, she embellished her claims of sexual assault for the first time and now included many details that she had left out during the original police interviews that she now claimed had occurred, despite that the police interviews occurred right after she said she had been sexually assaulted and the interviews lasted for several hours. The man was charged with a serious sexual offense crime for which he would have to undergo, if convicted, sex offender therapy and could be required to serve time in jail if convicted. After a trial to a jury who heard all the evidence and was able to evaluate the credibility of the claims, the jury deliberated for less than an hour and he was found not guilty.
Attempted First Degree Murder on a Police Officer. A juvenile who fled an under-aged alcohol and marijuana party as law enforcement approached, unintentionally struck one of the officers who jumped in front of the fleeing car from behind a tree. While the officer was not badly injured, he and another officer fired five rounds into the fleeing car and, luckily for all, no one was injured. The juvenile was threatened with being charged as an adult with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. Forensic reconstruction by the defense, complete with day and nighttime video, demonstrated that the juvenile was just panicked at the report of officers approaching the party, could not have seen the officer that stood in the path of his car, and, most critically, did not intend to hit the officer. The Court rejected the prosecution's request for sentencing to a correctional facility for up to five years and instead sentenced the juvenile to probation and 13 days at a youth facility.
Assault on an Ex-girlfriend. In a most bizarre case, a former girlfriend alleged that the client had drugged her or, in some fashion, had incapacitated her. Despite giving a statement to police to the contrary, law enforcement requested that he take a polygraph examination given by a law enforcement officer. Instead the client was evaluated by one of the top regional polygraphers who determined that the client was telling the truth: he did nothing to incapacitate the woman. As a result of this test, the charges were ultimately dropped.
Accusation of Exhibition by a Minor. In another unusual case, a neighbor alleged that a minor living in the neighborhood exhibited himself to her. Rather than just tell him to zip up his pants, she requested another neighbor go and inspect the young man to see if he was really unzipped. The second women went to see him on a ruse to confirm that he was unzipped and she also neglected to just, as one would expect in a community of neighbors, tell him that his pants were unzipped. Instead he was charged with a serious sexual offense crime for which he would have to undergo, if convicted, sex offender therapy. After a trial to the court, he was found not guilty.
Sexual Assault on a Minor. A man supervising a sleep over of his teenage daughter and her friends was accused of inappropriately touching one of the girl's backside. She had earlier complained to everyone of a temperature and chills. Ostensibly, the man intended to only make her feel better by massaging her back and head, something he routinely did in his family and for which he had training. He was charged with sexual assault on a child, but after investigation, interviews with witnesses, and a demand for trial, the charges were ultimately dismissed.
Two Counts of Sexual Assault. A young college aged-man charged with two separate counts of sexual assaults on two former girlfriends pled not guilty and was tried in a bench trial (before a judge without a jury). During cross-examination, the first girl revealed that the alleged sexual assault supposedly occurred in a sports car. The judge was shown the sport car and the apparent difficulty of having any sex, much less non-consensual sex, in the driver's bucket seat. In the second count, a former girlfriend complained that she was sexually assaulted at a party where she had not been drinking. Witnesses testified that she had in fact been drinking and, most importantly, that she had not been distressed at any time during the evening. On cross-examination, she revealed that several months after the alleged incident she had visited the young man every day for over a week while he was hospitalized. She also testified that she painted his toenails at the hospital to cheer him up while he recovered from his illness. A photograph was introduced showed her smiling in bed with the young man several months after the alleged incident. She testified that she was just trying to get even with him for the prior event. The judge dismissed all charges in the case.
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