Marc Salinas won a not guilty verdict for a client charged with operating under the influence (OUI) after a serious nighttime crash.
On a late summer evening in 2018, the client was traveling north on Route 107 in Saugus, Massachusetts, when his vehicle struck a car that was stopped at a red light. The client’s car overturned and came to rest partially submerged in a swamp. After climbing from the vehicle, the client was eventually confronted by police, who alleged that they smelled alcohol and asked him to perform field sobriety tests - standing on one leg while counting aloud, and walking a straight-line heel to toe. The police claimed he failed the tests.
Marc tried the case before a jury in a Massachusetts District Court. He argued that it was implausible for officers to have detected the smell of alcohol over the odor of a dirty swamp in the middle of summer, and that field sobriety tests are wholly unreliable when a person is asked to perform them in the immediate aftermath of a violent crash. The jury found Marc’s client not guilty after less than thirty minutes of deliberation.