In late November I conducted a jury trial for a client charged with Hit and Run of and Attended Vehicle in Seattle, WA.  The jury, after approximately one hour of deliberations, returned a verdict of Not Guilty (unanimous acquittal).

Before our trial, I advised my client the best option in the case was to present the evidence to a jury for consideration rather than accept a criminal conviction.  Once agreed we proceeded with empanelling a jury. Just prior to the testimony of both involved Washington State Patrol Trooper's I was informed they didn't feel my client was guilty of the offense.  WHAT!  I presented this information to the Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for review of the case and recommended she dismiss the matter.  Not surprisingly, she ignored the Troopers' positions and proceeded with the jury trial.

It must really be difficuly to knowingly present a case to a jury of citizens when you know the officers involved don't even stand by your position.  Long story short, the Trooper's both testified my client did not have knowledge of the incident and felt it was not justified to write a citation.

Moral of the story: There are numerous attorneys too afraid to take any case to trial that practice under the guise of an "experienced DUI attorney" or "experienced courtroom attorney" when in reality all they do is plead people guilty as charged.

As I tell juries all the time, thankfully in our system of justice there are two sides to every story and if your attorney is too afraid to tell yours in front of a jury, you had better re-think that representation.

As of this writing, in the past month three of my clients have had cases which resulted in two mistrials at trial (after a jury was empanelled) which ultimately resulted in reduced charges and one Not Guilty!  Not a bad way to end the year.

Call Nate Webb if you have had a Seattle DUI Arrest, or DUI arrest anywhere in Washington State.  I'm a truly experienced, trial-tested Seattle DUI Attorney and have the results to back that statement up!