In this case, the witness for the prosecution exaggerates his story to make Mr. Garrison look like an insane driver. Using a miniature model of the school parking lot and video of actual traffic, I was able to secure a not Guilty jury verdict.

Paul was sitting across from me in my office. He was charged with Reckless Driving. I figured that this would be the typical case of going to court one time and having the charges reduced to Careless Driving. I was wrong.

The janitor at Paul's daughter's school accused him of speeding through the school parking lot and almost running him over on a rainy morning. It was "Doughnuts for Dad's Day" at the school.

We went to court several times over the course of a year. Paul voluntarily took and passed a polygraph. I know that the prosecutor wanted to dismiss the case but the school board was pushing this case. It had become political.

At this point in my career I had tried around sixty cases, but never a Reckless Driving charge. I had difficulty understanding the statute. I still have never used the word "wanton" in a sentence. My strategy was to recreate the scene of the morning in question. To do this I visited the scene with Paul, video taped a typical morning of traffic at the school, and had Paul build a model of the school parking lot. I remember walking into the courthouse on the morning of trial. When the guard saw me carrying the model and a tool box full of model cars and traffic signs, he said "What do you think this is, a murder trial"? The janitor testified how Paul had driven through the parking lot at a high rate of speed, run over traffic cones, squealed his tires, and almost hit him. He said that Paul "revved his engine" to attempt to get him to move out of his way. He described it like a game of chicken, stating that if he didn't jump out of the way, Paul would have run him over. On cross examination I was able to show the jury how patently ridiculous this testimony was because nobody in their right mind is going to play chicken with a pick up truck. I further used this witness to paint a picture of how crowded the parking lot was that day.

In closing I argued to the jury that if this really happened wouldn't somebody else have seen it? The picture that the janitor painted was a shocking and memorable one. The fact was nobody else saw it because it never happened. The jury sent Paul home at 7:30 PM on the second day of trial with his good name intact.