Out­come: Dis­missal of DUI less safe, obstruc­tion, and car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon

Date: Jan­u­ary 20, 2009

Court: Munic­i­pal Court of Pooler

Actual Court Judg­ment: Actual Judgment-Bail-Bondsman’s DUI Dismissed

Descrip­tion

On his way to Florida, Marty — a bail bonds­man — lies fast asleep in the pas­sen­ger seat of his black Toy­ota Tacoma. His good buddy is at the wheel. They need gas, so his friend exits I-95 into a Gate gas sta­tion in Pooler, Geor­gia. Drowsily, Marty walks into the sta­tion, heads up to the counter. “How can I help you?” the clerk asks. “I’d like to fill up,” Marty says. “How much?” “Eighty dol­lars,” he replies, hand­ing over the cash. With that, Marty walks out­side and starts pump­ing the gas. Over his shoul­der, he hears a sur­pris­ing ques­tion: “Why didn’t you acknowl­edge me and the other cus­tomers?” Look­ing up from the pump, Marty finds a police offi­cer whose look says he’s not jok­ing. But Marty can’t help but be con­fused. “Are you seri­ous?” he chuck­les. “Show me some iden­ti­fi­ca­tion,” the offi­cer demands. Check­ing his pock­ets, Marty real­izes that his ID is in the truck. Calmly, he tells the offi­cer that both his bond­ing and his dri­ving licenses are inside. He also informs the offi­cer that there is a gun in the cen­ter con­sole. He tells the police­man that it would be fine if he wanted to check it out. “Stop pump­ing gas, and get your license,” the cop demands. Marty replies, “Yes sir, no prob­lem, after I fin­ish pump­ing my fuel.” As he fin­ishes the sen­tence, Marty finds him­self hand­cuffed. Soon, he’s being placed in the back of a patrol car. See­ing all of this, Marty’s friend opens the driver’s side door and asks the offi­cer to explain what was going on, just as another patrol car arrives. At this point, both offi­cers have the friend take a pre­lim­i­nary breath­a­lyzer, which he passes. When they demand that Marty take a test as well, he refuses, say­ing he has done noth­ing to deserve such treat­ment. “I don’t care what you think. You are going to jail,” one of the offi­cers retorts. “You’ll have to wait for him at the jail,” they tell Marty’s friend. Imme­di­ately, they take him away to be charged with DUI, obstruc­tion, and car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon.

At the pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing the Judge refused to bind the case up to state court, although nearly all such cases are sent there. Instead, the Judge took the case under con­sid­er­a­tion.  I went to the Gate gas sta­tion to pre­serve video sur­veil­lance evi­dence. But those at the sta­tion stead­fastly refused my request. So, I cre­ated a motion demand­ing the videos. I never did get the video.  I worked relent­lessly to attack the DUI charges before his case could get to the State Court of Chatham County.

In the end the Judge dis­missed the charges out­right. On the three charges of DUI less safe, Obstruc­tion, and Car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon, Marty walked free.