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Thursday, September 23, 2010
By Michael Nichols
Categories: Michael J. Nichols
A Lansing man walked out of court on Monday, September 20, 2010 with a check for the balance of his bond. It was the day that the trial in his Ingham-County-OWI-arrest was scheduled to start. “It is a lesson that sometimes you just prepare and hold out for trial – even if the facts are not perfect,” said Mike Nichols. Nichols added “I waited with the client at the clerk’s window and the clerks were kind enough to expedite the check for the balance of the bond that he posted on the day after his arrest.”
The man, 62, was arrested at approximately 11:30 pm on July 3rd when he went out for something to eat. “His wife was not home that weekend and he got hungry while watching John Wayne movies,” said Nichols. “He drank 3 tall beers that afternoon and thought he was ok. Ordering pizza would have been a better idea but he almost had the most expensive trip to Taco Bell of his life,” Nichols added.
The officer pulled the man over for improper lane use after he failed to maintain his lane while going through a rural intersection near Michigan State University’s campus in Ingham County. Nichols said, “the road is designed sort of awkwardly so we were prepared to show the jury pictures of exactly how this client negotiated that intersection and to make sure that all of the jurors would recognize where it is and relate to the client’s driving … because it’s almost impossible not to do what the client did as he drove through the intersection.”
The arresting officer also subjected the man to the standardized field sobriety tests (sfsts). One of the early studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), concluded that the sfst’s should not be administered to individuals over 60 because of the compromised balance that may be present in the person’s physiology and choosing other tests would be fairer to individuals over 60.
“Then we had the datamaster,” added Nichols. “The results were .09/.09 about an hour after this individual was behind the wheel. This was a tough case for the prosecuting attorney in many respects but not perfect for us. There was no video of the client’s performance of the sfsts to observe and that could cut both ways. I am pleased that the client was allowed to accept responsibility to 2 civil infractions. We were only able to negotiate that agreement after I offered that the client was willing to agree to undergo the Highway Safety Education Class, the MADD Victim Impact Panel and the Insight/Impact weekend offered by a treatment provider known as ‘PATS’” said Nichols. He added: “I thought that it was so cool for the client to walk out of court with a check on the day of his trial that I made a copy of the check with his permission to post on our web-site as a reminder of how great it is to do what we do and achieve a fair outcome.”