A Wreck is Not An Accident

I represented a very nice lady who was discovered by police parked in a ditch. She had pulled over because she had realized that she shouldn't be driving. She had been going through a very sad and difficult time in her life. When she had pulled off on the side of the road she got herself stuck in a ditch and some point later a police officer drove by and found her in her car. The engine was not running. He thought that she had crashed in the ditch. In fact she had only parked poorly. Fortunately for my client the first police officer that spotted her was a corporal and as we all know officers are far too important to attend to the normal duties of their job. So instead of processing him herself he called one of his subordinates to process her. When we got to the court the corporal was not there; only the subordinate came to court. She was unable to say whether the defendant had parked or wrecked or how the defendant got into the ditch. What she could say for certain is that when she arrived the corporal's blue lights were flashing and that he was behind my client. There was also a civilian witness on the scene who had stopped but the District Attorney was unable to secure his attendance in court. Thus in court all the District Attorney was able to present was the second officer's speculation that there had been a wreck. Unfortunately the Judge ruled against my argument that the defendant had already been stopped by the first police officer when the second police officer arrived at the scene. He did find the District Attorney's evidence that she had some trouble getting from the ditch to the road was not enough evidence of impairment to allow the police to arrest her. Thereafter the Judge granted my motion to suppress all the evidence gathered by the State after the arrest of the defendant.