NFP- Dolphins CB Will Allen; DUI 




This is a man that should not be killing any brain cells at all, imo, much less driving a car after doing so. I wonder where Wade is... I have a defense strategy in mind that could use a little fine tuning. As it stands, it wouldn't actually work, unless I get the judge laughing so hard that he gives it to the defendant on the grounds of judicial entertainment value. :tongue3:

Wade, it's sort of a hybrid mens rea, under the vague auspices of the M'Naughton rules and the concept of "irresistible implulse", coupled with a dash of the "policeman at the elbow" principle. I'm goin' diminished responsibility with settled insanity, as evidenced by faux statutory stupification under the "reasonable man" standard...revvin' the Lambo at the cop.... :sign5: All I need is a judge with a real good sense of humor, and a little bit more of your legal mumbo-jumbo.

*My* mumbo-jumbo? May you be pummeled with boilerplate.

McNaughton: "at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong."

Maybe you could add he thought there was a stargate at the end of the causeway? (He had to "get through" to the G'ouald homeworld, or perhaps he thought he had a breakfast date with Amanda Tapping.)

"Policeman at the elbow" might be hard. According to the police report, the police car was parked "perpendicularly".

You could also attack the probable cause assumption: "Defense's scientific expert: The only reason, yer honor, that there was a stronger smell of alcohol is that the gull wing doors of the Lamborghini created an inversion layer and kept more fumes than normal in the adjacent vicinity of the policeman. And said policemen, being a Miami policeman, should have enough experience with rich young men with Lamborghini's to know this, and therefore the reasonable assumption when noticing the strong odor should have been to remember the "Lamborghini effect." Ergo, he made an unreasonable assumption and lacked probable cause to stop my temporarily insane client.

(Unfortunately, this probably won't work outside of California or the DC Circuit, so Allen is probably hosed. Not to worry, he'll just get traded to Philadelphia and become man of the year.)

---