Does Harris County, Texas have a list of DWI dismissals?
The recent arrest of a Galveston County, Texas prosecutor for drunk driving is unfortunate. I will not belabor that point since Murray Newman's blog has a well written piece on this subject. What I am more concerned about however, is how easy it is for police officers that make DWI arrests to get away with arresting innocent people. When someone goes to jail for this crime they are the ones that have to bond out of jail, hire a lawyer, and potentially facing losing their drivers license for a period of time. This happens even before it is determined if the person is guilty or not of driving while intoxicated. The police officer that makes the arrest goes on his merry way to the doughnut shop without suffering any consequences if he/she is wrong in making that arrest in the first place. For example, the Harris County District Attorney's Office is flying in a Houston Police officer that was assigned to the DWI task force from out of state for his cases that are set for trial. This officer was prolific at arresting people for DWI, but I found his work to be sloppy. Not surprisingly, the District Attorney's Office has failed to convict anyone that has gone to trial where this officer was flown back to testify. The citizens of Harris County, Texas should not stand for this type dysfunctional use of county funds. An officer that has left the state should not be paid to come back to lose DWI trials routinely. In fact, I hope that the DA's Office is looking closely at which officer's are continously making bad arrests so that this may be addressed properly. I myself also promise to be more diligent in taking down the names of arresting officers when my client's DWI case is dismissed.