Attorney Matthew Swisher won a DUI trial on April 14 after gutting the prosecution’s case with a pretrial motion to exclude evidence because the arresting officer did not offer his client a Spanish interpreter.
The jury in Clark County District Court deliberated approximately 40 minutes before returning a verdict. Left to wonder why they didn’t hear about any field sobriety tests, a breath test or a blood draw, the six-member jury unanimously voted “not guilty.”
What jurors didn’t know was Swisher successfully argued in a pretrial motion that any post-arrest statements and the defendant’s refusal of a breath test should be excluded because a language barrier that prevented the defendant from waiving his rights knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. The defendant spoke only Spanish, while the officer spoke only English.
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Barrar Law
Attorneys Neil Anderson and Katie Kauffman won a trial Nov. 28 for a client accused of first-degree assault in the February 2021 shooting of a Vancouver man in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
The client, who has been in custody since the incident on $300,000 bail, was acquitted on all charges and released from the Clark County Jail after Anderson and Kauffman successfully argued that the shooting was in self-defense.
A jury returned the verdicts after deliberating approximately three hours.
Jurors heard testimony last week before the Thanksgiving holiday, and then returned to court Nov. 28 for closing arguments and deliberations.
The client was initially charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors amended the charge down to first-degree assault, a class A felony, with a firearm enhancement less than a month before trial. He was also charged with drive-by shooting, a class B felony. If convicted he faced between 14 and 17 years in prison.
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Barrar Law