Working on creating an argument in favor of the defendant for the following case:
MEMO
TO: LEGAL WRITING CLASS
RE: FINAL PROJECT
CASE: City of Greenwood vs. Harold Anderson
PART 1 – DO YOUR RESEARCH
We need to do work towards our memorandum of law in the Harold Anderson matter. As you know, this is an evidentiary issue. Anderson has been charged with DUI, 1st offense. He was pulled over as part of a “license check” conducted by the City of Greenwood and the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Department on March 11, 2021. As it was within the city limits of Greenwood, a City of Greenwood detective was the arresting officer. While at least one of the vehicles from the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Department had video recording equipment on scene, this particular arresting officer’s vehicle was unmarked and had no such equipment.
The detective indicates in his report that Anderson was falling down drunk. Could not stand let alone complete a field sobriety test. Anderson allegedly passed out in the back of the unmarked car on the way to the jail. There is a video of the breathalyzer (BA) test site, but Anderson is clearly out of it and simply slumps in the chair in front of the camera with his head down. Audio is at best garbled, with portions of the video providing horrible feedback so that you can’t understand what is being said at all in places. The video only lasts 7 minutes and 20 seconds, as the detective hands Anderson a slip of paper who shakes his head in a negative fashion, then the office cuts off the recorder. You can’t hear what is said as this portion has the worst feedback on the audio. The detective, as the arresting officer, has submitted an affidavit that says his vehicle had no camera which would have allowed recording of the incident site and that the audio issues at the BA site were related to a defective microphone which was not previously known and which was fixed the next day by SLED. The affidavit also states that our client refused the test so the video was cut off after the refusal.
Using Westlaw, find law on the following points. Be sure to select a good quote from each source, and properly cite it (pinpoint required if it is a case).
Attached is a sample to show a proper format, you can of course adopt your own style but it should resemble this document — a caption is required at the top, and it should have a structure and signature block (use your name as the lawyer for signature purposes!).
