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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
By Michael Nichols
A southeast Michigan man has his life back and a second chance when a jury in Battle Creek acquitted him of drunk driving charges after he crashed his motorcycle into a pole. “I told the jury that the off-duty DNR officer who found him saved him, but it was up to them to protect him,” said lead lawyer and East Lansing OWI attorney Mike Nichols. The man was charged with OWI after a blood analysis from the MSP showed that his alleged blood alcohol content was .18 an hour and a half after the crash.
“The client was concerned because we did not get into the fact that he was administered life-saving treatment and injected with various fluids that could have broken down in his system and created a falsely-elevated BAC,” said Nichols. “However, the beautiful thing about jurors is that if you take the time to get to know them and they understand the importance of the case, they will put the pieces together on their own and find their way to the truth,” he added. Nichols is an OWI-OUIL-DUI attorney who is author of the drunk driving manual for Michigan lawyers published by Thomson West.
“We also prepared for trial in a span of 2 weeks,” Nichols added. He said: “it was vita l to show up ready for trial and make the prosecutor put on their proofs because in two weeks we outworked them and even produced the general manager of the brewpub from which the client bought a growler of beer that was found empty near the crash. That general manager explained that the growler is takeout only and patrons cannot drink on-site. The physics, the testimony and the whole case made no sense when you considered the prosecutor’s theory. How could the growler survived the crash if it was empty and went through a crash like the one described in the case? That lead to a not guilty verdict.”
Mike Nichols can be reached at mnichols@nicholslaw.net