DWI Acquittal from a Former Collin County Prosecutor
A Texas DPS trooper arrested our client for driving while intoxicated, a Class B misdemeanor, after a stop on the Dallas North Tollway that began near Plano and ended in Frisco. The case was tried to a jury in one of Collin County’s misdemeanor courts. After the blood test was suppressed in the middle of trial and the traffic-stop story came apart on cross-examination, the jury found our client Not Guilty. If you are facing a pending charge and need representation from a former Collin County prosecutor who knows how to win a DWI case, start with our Collin County DWI lawyer page.
What Our Client Was Facing
The trooper’s report described a driver going over 100 miles per hour up the tollway, weaving through traffic, slurring his speech, and failing every field sobriety test. After our client declined to provide a specimen, the trooper obtained a search warrant for his blood, and the result came back over 0.08.
Our client was in the area for a short-term consulting engagement. In his field, consultants compete for every new contract, and a DWI conviction follows you onto every background check and into every interview. He was also a lawful permanent resident. A first DWI did not put his status in jeopardy by itself, but a conviction would have raised the stakes of everything that came after it, including any future application for citizenship.
The Strategy We Chose and Why
DPS troopers who patrol the Dallas North Tollway handle an enormous volume of traffic stops, and their cases are filed into the Collin County courts right alongside the city-agency arrests. That volume shaped our whole approach. When an officer makes more stops than he can count and writes his report long after the fact, the report and the recordings do not always tell the same story. Our plan was to try this case on the recordings: the dash camera, the body camera, and the paperwork trail behind the blood warrant, and to let the jury measure the testimony against each of them. Our guide to how DWI cases really work in Collin County explains why the video review is where these cases are so often won.
How the Strategy Met the Facts
The speed came apart first. The trooper first saw our client’s car while he was crossing the high flyover ramp that connects the President George Bush Turnpike to the northbound Dallas North Tollway, well above the main lanes. On cross-examination he agreed that from that position his radar could not measure the car below, and that he never afterward got a radar reading or paced the vehicle at a consistent distance. The claim of over 100 miles per hour in his report was an estimate, drawn from the fact that he had to drive that fast himself to catch up after descending from the ramp through traffic. By the end of the exchange, the most he could say was that our client appeared to be moving faster than the cars around him.
The report itself became the next problem. It had been written roughly two months after the arrest, by a trooper whose primary duty was tollway traffic enforcement and who agreed he had made more stops in the interim than he could count. The dash camera never showed our client weaving through traffic, and the trooper acknowledged he could not point to anything on the video that matched the erratic driving his report described.
The intoxication evidence followed the same pattern. The claimed slurred speech was a thick accent; the video showed a man speaking clearly, just not in the voice the trooper expected. The horizontal gaze nystagmus result rested entirely on the trooper’s credibility, because the camera could not see our client’s eyes, and by that point in the trial his credibility was the question, not the answer. On the walk-and-turn and one-leg-stand, performed on a windy shoulder, our client took the right number of steps, executed the turn correctly, and followed every instruction. His balance was imperfect the way most people’s balance is imperfect. His mental faculties were plainly sharp, and through all of it he stayed cooperative, even-tempered, and polite. Juries notice that.
Then came the warrant. On direct examination, the trooper testified that the blood draw followed every rule and procedure Texas law requires. Buried deep in the body camera footage was something the jury had not been shown: the trooper typing his search warrant affidavit on a laptop in the hospital room, adding his electronic signature, and handing the laptop to his backup trooper, who clicked through and signed as well. No oath was administered at any point. The recorded phone call to the judge who approved the warrant contained no oath either. An affidavit is sworn proof, and this one was never sworn. When I confronted the trooper with those recordings and he made those admissions, I moved to suppress the blood evidence. The court gave the State time to respond, considered the arguments, and suppressed the blood results.
The jury had been told there would be a blood test. Instead, they watched the State’s only witness concede the affidavit behind it was never sworn, and the number they were waiting for never came. What remained was a loss-of-faculties case resting on the word of a witness whose report the recordings kept contradicting, against a defendant who looked and sounded on video like a man in full command of his mental and physical faculties. The jury found him Not Guilty.
The Outcome and What It Meant
The acquittal made our client eligible for an expunction. Nothing from this arrest will appear on the background checks his career depends on, and there is no conviction to complicate his immigration status or a future citizenship application. He left the courtroom with the record he walked in with: a clean one.
If You Are Facing a Similar Charge
A DPS arrest on the tollway is not a conviction. These cases are built on reports, recordings, and paperwork, and each of those can be tested. If you have been arrested in Frisco, our Frisco DWI defense page covers how we handle these cases close to home, and our overview of defending a criminal case in Collin County explains what to expect at each stage. Call 214-764-5535 for a free consultation. My Dallas Criminal Lawyer, 5 Cowboys Way, Suite 300, Frisco, TX 75034.
Every case is different. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. The result described here depended on the specific facts, evidence, and circumstances of that case, and details have been generalized to protect client confidentiality.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a DWI blood test be thrown out in Collin County?
Yes. Blood drawn under a search warrant is only as good as the warrant behind it. In this case, the recordings showed the affidavit supporting the warrant was never sworn under oath, and the court suppressed the blood results in the middle of trial. Warrant paperwork, timing, and procedure are among the first things we examine in every blood-draw case.
What happens in a DWI trial when there is no blood or breath result?
The State must prove the driver lost the normal use of mental or physical faculties due to alcohol. That turns the trial into an evaluation of the video and the officer’s credibility. A defendant who follows instructions, speaks clearly, and holds a steady demeanor on camera can be his own best evidence.
Are DPS tollway arrests handled differently than city police arrests in Collin County?
They are filed into the same Collin County courts, but the cases have their own patterns. Troopers on highway patrol handle very high stop volumes, which makes report accuracy, radar and pacing evidence, and the gap between the report and the recordings especially important places to look.
