Meet Attorney Juanita Kimble

“The things you are passionate about are not random, they are your calling.” – Fabienne Fredrickson

Juanita Kimble has always had a passion for both solving problems and being helpful to others when possible. She can do that and so much more as a criminal defense attorney!

Juanita began her legal career in 2012, knowing early on she intended to focus on criminal defense. Since then, she has become a strong and unwavering advocate for those who trust her with their defense. Juanita served as a Public Defender for several years in the City of Atlanta, where she not only represented hundreds of people facing various types of charges, she was known as the go-to person other attorneys sought for advice on how to get things done in the courtroom, how to handle particularly tricky client situations, as well as for her savant-like knowledge of the criminal code. Given her innovative and zealous defense techniques, she was quickly promoted within her office, asked to mentor and train other attorneys, and recognized for her advocacy and professionalism.

Here at EHG Law firm, we understand how stressful facing criminal charges can be, and as a result, Juanita takes a very hands-on approach when helping clients. She makes it a point to ensure her clients understand what’s happening at every stage of the case and are given the information necessary to make the best decision for their situation. Here, her natural patience and compassion shine through as she counsels, listens, and cares about what really matters to our clients.

Knowledge of the law is an important part of being a defense attorney, so Juanita has prioritized ensuring her legal education and training go beyond what is necessary to provide the best defense for our clients. Although we handle various criminal cases, Juanita has gained rare, specialized training in DUI and traffic defense. She has not only studied the same techniques taught to police officers, but Juanita has become a fully credited Instructor of DUI Detection and Field Sobriety Testing. She is also trained in Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE) and the Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) program; courses typically saved for specialized law enforcement. As an expert, she now teaches attorneys from all over the country about DUI Defense, including most recently in Alpharetta, Dunwoody, and Savannah. She’ll be teaching again in Las Vegas in the Fall of 2023.

Although she’s known and loved throughout Georgia, Kentucky is the place she’ll always call home. Growing up in Lexington, she developed two great loves – bourbon and the Kentucky Wildcats! Indeed, she met her husband Mike while attending the University of Kentucky, and they now live locally with their beloved pooch Cairo.

How the GBI Handles Blood Alcohol and Drug Tests for DUI Cases

The Science Behind Blood Alcohol and Drug Testing

If you’re facing a DUI charge, you may have to undergo blood alcohol and drug testing to determine the extent of your impairment. Understanding how the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) handles blood samples for drug and alcohol testing can help you better understand the testing process and what to expect.

Receiving and Identifying the Evidence

When the GBI lab receives blood samples for testing, they use a lockbox, courier, or hand-to-hand exchange to receive the evidence. Once received, the GBI technicians scan, take pictures, and create a unique identifying bar code called a DOFS number. This number tracks the evidence throughout the testing process. The sample is then placed in a sealed bag using a heat seal, which melts the plastic together, and initialed to ensure the evidence’s integrity.

Blood Alcohol Testing

The blood alcohol test involves analyzing the blood sample through a headspace gas chromatograph flame ionization mass spectrometry detector. This lengthy name refers to a process where the blood is gently heated to raise the analytes into the gas space. The analytes are then injected into the instrument and proceed through a column that separates them based on their individual characteristics.

Once the analytes exit the column, they go through a flame, which counts the carbon in the sample. Ethyl alcohol, for example, has a specific number of carbons, which creates the peak you see in the results. The sample is then sent to a mass spectrometer, which fragments the ethyl alcohol to identify its specific composition. Once the data is collected, it’s time-stamped, and the results are obtained by averaging two readings.

Blood Drug Testing

The blood drug test involves two types of equipment, an enzyme immunoassay, and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry LCMS-MS. The enzyme immunoassay is a general screen for five different classes of drugs, including barbiturates, cannabinoids, benzodiazepines, cocaine, its metabolites, and opioids.

The LCMS-MS works by separating and isolating different drugs to determine which specific drugs are present. The drug is broken down into smaller pieces, which is compared to the reference standard of that drug to identify it.

Reliability of Results

It’s important to remember that just because you receive a positive blood alcohol or drug test result doesn’t mean you’re out of options. However, to navigate the legal process effectively, it’s crucial to have a legal team that understands the science behind the testing and can challenge the results if necessary. With their expertise, they can investigate potential errors or discrepancies in the testing process and build a strong defense on your behalf. So, if you’re facing a DUI charge, don’t hesitate to seek a qualified legal team who can fight for your rights and help you understand your options.

When does an officer need to read you your Miranda rights?

We have all heard characters on TV being read their Miranda rights by the police. On television, suspects are read these rights by the officer just as the officer places the suspect’s hands behind their back and clicks the handcuffs into place. Because of this, many people understandably, yet mistakenly, believe that if the police officer did not read them the Miranda warning at the time they are handcuffed, then the officers have violated their rights. People may also mistakenly think that the entire case must be thrown out because of this violation!

There are very specific circumstances that need to exist for an officer to be required to read a person their Miranda warnings. If these circumstances do not exist, there has been no violation.

What are these circumstances? Miranda warnings are required when an officer (or a person acting on the government’s behalf) conducts a custodial interrogation. Thus, there are three important aspects that, if all exist, will trigger the officer’s duty to read you the warning:

  • Conducted by Police Officer or Police Agent: the questions must be asked by a police officer or someone acting on behalf of law enforcement. In other words, if a private citizen (ex: your neighbor, your parent, or your significant other) places you in custody and interrogates you without reading you these rights, he or she has not committed a Miranda   They may have, however, committed a crime if they unlawfully detained you!
  • Custodial: In custody. This sounds pretty straightforward, but this element is probably the most debated and argued in court. In some instances, it is obvious if someone is in custody, such as when a person is handcuffed, in the back of a patrol car, or in a jail cell.

Other times, however, it is not so clear.  A person may be considered to be in custody even if he or she has not been formally arrested. When determining whether or not a person is in custody, the question is whether a reasonable person in the same circumstances would feel free to leave and end the questioning. Each case’s individual facts and circumstances must be carefully examined and evaluated to make this determination.

Furthermore, the interrogation must take place while the person is in custody. If a person, say, is in handcuffs in the back of the police car for some time, then taken out of the car, has the handcuffs removed, and is then interrogated, the questioning will not amount to a custodial interrogation.

A difficult thing in understanding the definition of “custodial” is that most people do not feel free to leave when talking to a police officer.  The standard is objective, not subjective.  This means that the judge evaluates only whether a “reasonable person” would have felt free to leave (objective) rather than if you, personally, felt free to leave in that moment (subjective).

  • Interrogation: An officer conducts an interrogation when he asks questions or takes other police actions that are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. Again, this definition is not as straightforward as it may seem.  Factors a court may consider when deciding if the contact rose to the level of an interrogation are the length, place, and time of the interview, the police conduct, the nature of the questions, and other relevant circumstances. These are not always easy to apply.

For example, if an individual is handcuffed and in the back of a patrol car on their way to jail, and the officer makes a comment about the weather or asks an unrelated conversational question, and in response the handcuffed person confesses to a crime, an interrogation has not taken place.

If all three of these factors are not present, then there has been no violation by the police. There is substantial case law evaluating situations to determine if Miranda warnings were required to help courts determine if a statement was obtained lawfully or not.

So, what exactly are the Miranda warnings?

Before any custodial interrogation, a suspect must be warned that he or she has a right to remain silent, that anything he or she says can be used against him or her, that he or she has the right to the presence of an attorney before and during questioning, and that if he or she cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for him or her before any questioning if he or she so desires. Miranda v Arizona (1966) 384 US 436, 479, 86 S Ct 1602.

Waiving Miranda

While it is their common practice to do so, an officer is not required to obtain an express and obvious waiver of your Miranda rights before interrogating you.  In other words, a person in custody does not need to say “I wish to answer the questions” or “I want to talk” in order for the questioning to begin and the statements to be admissible in court.

Instead, a waiver may be implied from the circumstances when, after a person has been advised of and states he or she understands their rights, the person freely submits to questioning. Thus, it is important that the person in custody be explicit about exercising their right to remain silent to prevent further questioning or the government arguing the waiver was implied.

What happens if an officer fails to read the Miranda warnings before a custodial interrogation?

The remedy is not a full dismissal of the charges. Instead, the suspect’s statements will be excluded from the prosecution’s case.  Thus, when the prosecutor puts on their evidence during a trial, they are not allowed to use a defendant’s statements to prove the prosecutor’s case.

However, while the statements that violate Miranda may not be used in the prosecution’s case-in-chief, they may be used for impeachment as long as they were made voluntarily. This means that if the defendant takes the stand in his own defense, the prosecutor can challenge the credibility of the defendant by introducing his incriminating statements. Shockingly, in some cases the police intentionally choose not to read a person these warnings so that they can obtain the statements and a prosecutor can use them to impeach a defendant.

Conclusion

In summary, the police have to remind a person of their rights to remain silent and to be represented by an attorney only when they are conducting a custodial interrogation.  If the three factors are not present then the statements are admissible in court. The most important thing to remember, however, is that you always have these rights regardless of whether or not a police officer reminds you of them.

Demystifying Field Sobriety Testing

How Understanding the History, Science, and Protocol Can Help You Win Your Case

Driving under the influence (DUI) is a serious charge, but there are many opportunities for drivers to win their cases if they understand the field sobriety testing process. Field sobriety tests (FSTs) are any tests administered on the side of the road, while standardized field sobriety tests (SFSTs) are specific tests that have been researched for accuracy and must follow specific instructions and criteria. The three standardized tests are the HGN, the Walk-and-Turn, and the One-Leg Stand.

Before the early 1970s, officers used several different field sobriety tests to determine possible intoxication. Officers used their own set of instructions and clues, making it very difficult to determine how reliable these tests were. However, in 1975, the Southern California Research Institute came up with the three standardized tests that officers use today. These tests have been researched for accuracy and must follow specific instructions and criteria.

It’s important to remember that whether the test is standardized or not, they are not validated impairment indicators. They can not indicate driving impairment, alcohol impairment, nor drug impairment. The only thing they validate is a statistical probability that somebody’s blood alcohol concentration is at or above the legal limit. And it’s important to keep this in mind when the prosecutor or the officer tries to say that the tests indicate impairment.

Knowing the data and the science behind today’s standardized field sobriety tests can prove valuable for your case. Not only does this provide insight into the accuracy of these tests, but it’s also wise to know the information an officer might use during their testimony. Many officers refer to the San Diego Study as validation for the test they administer. In 1998, the San Diego DUI task force was recruited to help study the reliability of field sobriety tests. The study found that when the three standardized field sobriety tests were combined, they were 91% reliable in determining if a person was at or above the legal limit of .08. However, this study was not peer-reviewed, and there are issues with the reliability of these tests when you look at the number of false positives.

When exploring these tests, it’s important to understand the protocol, clues, and common errors that officers make. For example, if you have an officer who skipped one of the three SFST’s without a medical reason, oftentimes that is a red flag that requires further investigation. You also want to explore what tests were administered to determine the cause for an arrest because some officers like to throw in non-standardized tests like the Romberg, the ABC test, or the finger-to-nose test. These tests are not validated, and there is no way to determine how accurate they are.

In conclusion, when you understand the history, science, protocol, and common areas where officers make mistakes or simply don’t follow the rules, you can better identify false positives and score wins for your client. Research the data and studies available, understand the science behind these tests, and explore the three specific standardized tests: the HGN, Walk-and-Turn, and One-Leg Stand. Knowing this information can make a significant difference in your case.