TEN SPECIFIC REASONS TO HIRE JOHN GIOFFREDI

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John Gioffredi
As seen in D Magazine logoCEO Magazine.
Named as one of the best PERSONAL lawyers in Dallas.

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4131 N. Central Expwy.
Suite 680
Dallas, Texas 75204-2171

Telephone: 214-739-4515
Fax: 214.739.3234
Email: info@gioffredi.com

  1. I HAVE A PROVEN TRACK RECORD OF WINNING
    (NOT PLEADING) DWI CASES:
    I have gotten not guilty verdicts in over 80 jury trials.  Some lawyers include GUILTY verdicts in their “wins” - in cases when they were prosecuting people, not defending them!  Make sure you ask how many NOT GUILTY jury verdicts they’ve gotten.  That’s what counts!

    I’ve gotten over 100 cases dismissed, and more than 60 of those due to motions to suppress.  I’ve also turned down obstruction offers in nine cases.  I went on to not guilty verdicts in seven of those.  Some lawyers have never turned down an obstruction offer.  I let my clients decide.

    I have 55 jury punishment verdicts on DWI cases.  Most of those cases resulted in less than one weekend in jail, and no probation.  Two sentences were 60 days, one was 42 days, one was 144 hours.  I’ve had three sentences of $0 fine and no time in jail*.  I’ve had several sentences of 72 hours in jail and no fine.  I’ve had literally dozens of sentences resulting in less than a weekend in jail, and fines less than $500.  No client of mine has ever voiced regret at having the jury set their punishment, and I strongly recommend this strategy for a first offense DWI.  Most lawyers don’t even inform their clients of this option.

    Probation was offered in every one of the above cases, but my clients turned probation down in favor of a short jail sentence.  Any lawyer can get you probation on a first offense DWI.  A lawyer on his first day of practice can do that.  Keeping you off of probation is what I can do.  (And if you ask them, any lawyer will tell you that one weekend in jail is better than 12 or 18 months on probation.) 
    *A $0 fine and 0 days in jail is actually an illegal sentence now, because now there is a statutory minimum sentence of 72 hours.
  2. I’VE BEEN DEFENDING AND WINNING DWI CASES
    IN DALLAS COUNTY SINCE 1987
    gavelI’ve been defending and winning DWI cases in Dallas since 1987.  Many of my competitors weren’t even in law school in 1987, and some of them are charging more than I am.  A lot of lawyers have been practicing law for 15 or 20 years, but very few have been defending DWI cases for that long.

    You’ll see some lawyers advertizing that they were judges or prosecutors for several years. Well, they spent that time convicting people and sending them to jail, or putting them on probation.  Defending them and winning their case is a whole new ball game.  That’s what I’ve been doing the last 20 plus years.

  3. I AM RECOGNIZED BY OTHER LAWYERS AS A LEADER IN DWI DEFENSE STRATEGY:
    I am asked to speak to other lawyers on a regular basis at various DWI defense seminars across the state.  This is one of the highest honors a lawyer can receive from his peers.  Other defense lawyers email me for advice, and some sit in on my jury trials just to learn.  I have spoken at legal seminars on jury selection, ethics, attacking field sobriety tests, and jury punishment, among other areas.

    I am especially pleased to have created a innovative approach to jury selection that preconditions jurors to understand that police officers face tremendous pressure to arrest and charge almost all drinking drivers with DWI, whether the driver is intoxicated, or not.  Most jurors enter the courtroom believing that police officers would only arrest the guilty.  I get them to understand  that police officers, for political reasons, also can arrest the innocent.  Hundreds of thousands of DWI cases have been tried in this country, and to my knowledge, this is a completely revolutionary tactic in the defense of DWI cases. This new system has greatly increased my percentage of not guilty verdicts, and I am proud to say has benefitted other defense attorneys with their DWI cases as well.

    I am the first (and possibly the only) lawyer in Dallas to recommend jury punishment for routine DWI cases, and to capitalize on the relatively light sentences assessed by jurors for first time DWI offenders.

    Several fellow lawyers have hired me when they have been arrested for DWI, and I have had the good fortune to have won most of their cases.

    In Dallas, on August 20th, 2008, I attended a meeting of about 25 to 30 lawyers interested in improving their skills in fighting DWI cases. The keynote speaker was supposed to be Dallas Police Department officer Ronald Cathcart, Sargent of the Dallas DWI Task Force.  The DWI Task Force is composed of officers who specialize in DWI arrests.   For whatever reason, Officer Cathcart never appeared.  After about 30 minutes, the meeting organizer asked me if I’d speak instead, and I agreed.  So without any advance preparation, I spoke for over 45 minutes on standardized field sobriety tests (SFSTs), including how SFSTs are supposed to be administered by the arresting officer, common mistakes made by arresting officers in conducting SFSTs, and problems in the underlying theory behind SFSTs.   Afterwards, several lawyers thanked me for “saving” their meeting.

    This is what I mean when I day that I am a recognized leader in the field of DWI defense.  When the keynote speaker was unable to appear, the other lawyers in attendance turned to me.  They know that I am the “Go To” guy on these cases.  This also points out my passion in defending DWI cases.  I don’t have to share my knowledge with other lawyers, but I do.  Even if you don’t hire me, the chances are pretty good that whoever you hire, they are using one of the trial techniques that I have taught.
  4. FOR ME, FIGHTING DWI CASES IS A PASSION!
    Anyone who has seen me at work knows that this isn’t simply a job for me.  DWI prosecutions have gotten out of control, in large part due to the lobbying efforts by MADD, and similar victims rights groups.  Police officers are increasingly judged and rewarded for the sheer number of DWI arrests, and not for the quality of their cases.  Non-intoxicated and borderline intoxicated individuals are now being routinely arrested, all in the name of public safety.

    Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is not simply a friendly group of old ladies out to help people.  They are an intolerant fringe group that has gathered enough social and political clout to completely change the face and proportionality of DWI laws across the country.  They will bully, intimidate, and threaten anyone who stands in their way.  Before MADD, a standard DWI without an accident might have cost an offender $1,000 or so.  Now, a standard DWI can cost an otherwise law abiding citizen up to $10,000 or more.  Enough is enough.
  5. I FIND CREATIVE NEW WAYS TO WIN  DWI CASES:
    Many lawyers are afraid to try breath and blood test cases.  The reality is that breath and blood test cases in the range of 0.06 to 0.12 are fairly easy to win, provided that you have a good video.  (And yes, they can prosecute you for DWI at alcohol levels less than the 0.08 “legal limit.”   Those cases are generally fairly easy to beat.)  To convict you of DWI in the state of Texas, the prosecution must prove either that you did not have the normal use of your mental or physical faculties, or that your alcohol concentration was 0.80 BAC or higher at the time you were driving.  I can get the prosecution experts to admit - every time - that they don’t know what your alcohol concentration was at the time you were driving!  The prosecution experts, if questioned properly, have to admit that breath and blood tests can only tell what your alcohol level is at the exact moment the test is given.  The tests can never tell what someone’s exact alcohol level was when they were driving.

    In 2006, I had a virtually unwinnable case.  The woman had a 0.23 breath test, was videotaped driving erratically, and she looked clearly looked intoxicated.  The weather turned nasty during the course of the trial, and Judge Ada Brown of Dallas County Criminal Court No. 1 declared a mistrial to send the jurors home.  I filed and won a double jeopardy motion for my client based upon a wrongful termination of her trial.  Once a jury has been selected to hear a case, jeopardy attaches, and the person may not be tried again for the same case.

    I did the same in 2008, where the prosecution alleged that my client has driven while intoxicated in 2005.  In reality, her DWI arrest had been in 2007.  During the trial, the prosecution discovered the mistake, and requested that the Judge Tom Fuller dismiss the case.  He did so, and I later convinced the prosecutor that they had violated my client’s double jeopardy rights, and eventually the DA’s office agreed to a not guilty verdict on what lawyers call a “no evidence TBC”.  That means the DA agrees not to put on any evidence, and the defendant wins by default.

    On November 14th, 2008, I represented a lawyer in a DWI case where the lawyer had a 0.21 breath alcohol concentration.  The case was 21 months old, and I got the judge to dismiss it based upon my speedy trial motion.

    If you want to compare lawyers, ask any other lawyer if they have ever won a DWI case on a double jeopardy motion.  It’s probably happened before in Dallas county, but I’ve never been made aware of it.

    I’ve won seven DWI cases in the last five years on speedy trial motions.  Any lawyer out there has had cases dismissed because the state couldn’t find a witness.  That will happen from time to time.  But if you want to compare lawyers, ask any other lawyer how many speedy trial motion dismissals they have had granted.  There will be a few, but not many.
  6. PROBATION IS FOR SUCKERS.  TO ME, PROBATION IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE OUTCOME, AND IT SHOULDN’T BE ACCEPTABLE
    FOR YOU EITHER.
    If you agree to probation, your DWI will be on record not just for your life, but for the rest of recorded history.  Where is the bargain in that?  If you agree to probation, you’ll have to:

    1)   Report in person once a month, usually for two years
    2)   Pay a $60 a month probation fees
    3)   Pay a fine of around $800
    4)   Take a $50 DWI Education program
    5)   Attend a $20 MADD Victim Impact Panel
    6)   Perform a drug and alcohol evaluation
    7)   Perform 24 to 40 hours of community service restitution (in other words, charity work)
    8)   You can’t leave the state without the advance permission of probation
    9)   You can’t spend the night outside of your county of residence without permission
    10)  You may be asked to provide urine specimens, at $35 each, to check you for alcohol or drugs
    11)  Some judges forbid you from drinking any alcohol while on probation
    12)  And if you violate your probation, you may be ordered to spend up to 180 days in jail.

    Who in their right mind would consider all that to be a bargain?  Do you think you deserve all of that crap for a simple DWI?  Well I don’t!  And I can keep it from happening!
  7. A PLEA BARGAIN MUST BE A TRUE BARGAIN.  IF IT’S NOT A GREAT DEAL FOR YOU,  DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT ACCEPTING IT!
    A DWI conviction stays on your record forever.  A DWI conviction could conceivably cost you tens of thousands of dollars if it kept you from getting a key promotion, or from obtaining a better job, or from getting licensed into a new profession.  There is no telling how a DWI might affect you twenty or thirty years down the road.  For that reason, almost everyone should fight a DWI charge (especially a first offense), and no one should plead guilty to DWI unless the circumstances are unusual and the details of the plea bargain extremely good.

    Almost everyone with a first offense DWI gets probation unless 1) their case is dismissed, 2) they get a not guilty verdict, or 3) they decide to accept a short jail sentence instead of probation.  There is no penalty for giving it a shot and trying for a not guilty verdict.  In fact, nine times out of ten, the Defendant ends up better off when he or she goes to trial, instead of accepting a plea.  
  8. I CAN’T STAND LOSING.  AT ANYTHING.

    You probably know people like me.  If I’m not on your side, you probably wouldn’t like me very much.  That’s because I like to win, and I hate to lose.  I have trouble sleeping when I lose a case.  Some lawyers just shrug it off and move on to the next case.  I obsess.  I spend the next two weeks trying to figure out what I could have done differently to win the case.  This obsession with winning and refusal to accept losing is what drives me to be the best lawyer that I can be.  After trying hundreds of cases for over 20 years, I still can’t sleep after a loss.  You should want that in your attorney.  You don’t want someone who just shrugs and goes on to their next case.
  9. I CAN USUALLY DO MORE FOR LESS.
    Calculating expensesI know lawyers who charge $12,000, $15,000, or even $25,000 or more to defend a DWI case.  Maybe you have talked to them as well.  You’d have to be a complete idiot to pay that much for a DWI defense.  I can defend a DWI as well as and probably better than any of those lawyers, and I never charge more than $10,000 for a Dallas county misdemeanor DWI (unless you want ludicrous amounts of trial preparation, which I can do, but I’d never recommend that you spend your money on that).

    My father worked in a factory.  I didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury.  I don’t expect to make $500,000 a year defending DWIs.  I’m good at what I do, and I make a great living.  I don’t need to rip people off to make my house payment.
  10. I FIGHT ALMOST EVERY CASE.  EVEN THE TOUGH ONES THAT OTHER LAWYERS WON’T FIGHT.
    Three or four times a year I have clients come to me asking for me to do a trial for them because the first lawyer that they hired said that they wouldn’t try it for them.  The other lawyers said that their case was too hard, or that it couldn’t be won. 

    No lawyer is going to win every case.  I certainly don’t. There are too many variables, not the least of which is the unpredictability of jurors.  But I don’t understand why a lawyer wouldn’t try a case just because it might have only a 3% chance of winning.   If a client wants a trial on a case with terrible facts, why wouldn’t the lawyer fight that case to the best of his ability? 

    I represented a 19 year old kid in 2007 that had a terrible case.  Of course at 19, he wasn’t able to drink legally.  At 2:30 am, he was going northbound on Cole Avenue in Dallas, which is south bound only at that location.  He crashed head-on into a second vehicle, injuring the driver and the front seat passenger, then left the scene without stopping.  His vehicle came to a stop four blocks away, with a trail of leaking radiator fluid leading the police directly to his vehicle.   The police found him passed out at the wheel, with puke on his arm, down the side of the car, and on the street below the driver’s side window.   They found a club ID bracelet on his wrist, a fake ID showing him to be 21, and marijuana on the back seat floor board.  He looked just awful on the jail DWI video, and even after puking his guts out, he still blew a 0.19 on the breath test, over two and a half times the legal limit.  In court, the front seat passenger identified him as the driver who hit them.

    No other lawyer wanted to fight his case, so he came to me.  I was up front with him and told him that I didn’t think I could win the DWI, but I figured I could give it a try, and that I could at least keep him off of probation, if nothing else.  We had a jury trial, got a not guilty verdict on the marijuana case, and he got time served on the DWI case, with no probation, and a $1,000 fine.  We didn’t beat the DWI, but it was an extremely positive result under a terrible set of facts. 

    Ask anyone you know that has been convicted of a DWI if they would have rather gone through two years of probation with $1,440 in probation fees, or simply paid a $1,000 fine and been done with it.  The answer should be obvious.