Seattle Traffc Lawyer | You Can't Be Too Careful

I am a Seattle traffic lawyer. Most of the clients that come my way have a typical story. They got off work (or don't work) and were having a couple of frosty beverages to unwind at the local pub. They got in their car to drive home, had a broken tail light, expired tags, didn't use a turn signal, were doing their usual speeding, or some other minor traffic violation, and got pulled over by the Seattle police who, with nothing better to do, went full scale DUI investigation on you until they got enough information to haul you down to the station for a breath test.

But sometimes fate jumps up and bites you in the ass and you can't do anything about it. I was just reading about Dante Stallworth, the NFL receiver, formerly with the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles, who recently signed with the Cleveland Browns, and his story is one of those that scares anyone who reads it. From what I understand, Stallworth, after a night of at least some drinking, was driving home, minding his own business (although he may have been speeding at the time), and hit and killed a 59 year old man. I may be incorrect on this, but from what I understand the man was not in a cross walk and walked out into a major street late at night. Whether Stallworth would have seen the guy had he not had anything to drink is anyone's guess. But these type of situations that are out of your control are the one's that keep me up at night as a Seattle traffic lawyer.

And his attorney, whether a hardened Seattle DUI lawyer or a newly minted public defender, is going to have a hard time presenting this case to a jury because of the sympathy that is going to be afforded to the deceased (I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing - I'm speaking strictly from a trial strategy point of view).

When the prosecutor tries to put the victim's family member on to talk about what a great guy he was and how he always followed traffic laws and the like, it is going to be a tough sell (although I have seen some great Seattle criminal lawyers take a case like this and do well with it - they do have the fact that it was extremely late at night and they guy was walking into a street with a car coming right at him - and I don't know what the victim's toxicology screen looked like, but it is possible that he had had a night of drinking himself).

A story published today here said that Stallworth entered a plea of not guilty (normal at this stage in the proceedings, even if he is going to enter a plea agreement with the state). We'll have to see how things turn out. But remember, there are many things out there you can't control (have you ever heard about the guy that got the Seattle DUI after someone ran a red light and crashed into him? It happens), and sometimes you just have to be lucky.

Thanks for reading the Seattle Traffic Lawyer Blog. Come back soon.

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