THE GILLESPIE LAW FIRM IN THE MEDIA

...A Phoenix defense lawyer (with The Gillespie Law Firm, P.C.), Karyn Klausner, who is a former municipal judge, said that for the boy to be tried as an adult, the tests must show that he is competent to understand the charges against him, has a basic understanding of the court process and is able to assist in his defense. In addition, prosecutors must prove that he cannot be rehabilitated by the time he turns 18 and leaves the juvenile justice system.

Ms. Klausner said she was appalled that the authorities were considering such an option. “There’s no way on God’s green earth that an 8-year-old should be subject to the adult system,” she said.

Prosecutors also have what Ms. Klausner called the unlikely option of deciding that the boy is incompetent to stand trial, detaining him in a psychiatric facility until he is deemed competent, and then trying him as an adult...

...After Cain was found guilty in early 2005 in City Court and he paid his $157 fine, he took the case to Maricopa County Superior Court.

Judge Michael Jones refused to hear the case and affirmed the city’s ruling.

But then Cain saw his chance to fight the ticket on Oct. 25. That’s when Superior Court Judge Margaret Downie reversed the Scottsdale court’s guilty ruling in another photo enforcement ticket case, this time against criminal defense attorney Craig Gillespie.

After Gillespie argued that a speeding ticket couldn’t legally be issued by a machine, Downie ruled that the City Court had no jurisdiction in the case. For his appeal, Gillespie had hired attorney Susan Kayler of Scottsdale, who wrote the book, “Smile for the Speed Camera: Photo Radar Exposed.”...

...Craig Gillespie, a DUI lawyer and former prosecutor, said that the central fact in many DUI cases is the blood-alcohol reading. A breathalyzer's calibration is required to be checked every 30 days, and a larger series of tests is run every 90 days to make sure the machine is functional, according to the sheriff's office.

His firm, The Gillespie Law Firm, has won DUI cases that showed a breathalyzer didn't have the necessary documentation to demonstrate that it worked properly. He said, though, that he has never seen a case where there was a problem in documenting equipment consistently over the span of a year.

"That's very odd," he said. "Law enforcement is charged with the responsibility of keeping these records. It's just standard practice. If they are not keeping them or misplaced them, then someone has dropped the ball."...

...Phoenix defense lawyer Craig Gillespie, a former prosecutor, said that blood-alcohol readings are a central piece of evidence in prosecuting a DUI case.

"They have to disclose those records to the defense so that we can determine whether it's been done properly," he said. "If they can't produce those documents, then the prosecution can't do their jobs, which is to disclose those documents to the defendants."...

...As with all things legal, you'll stand a better chance with a good lawyer by your side.

No one knows that better than a lawyer, which is why Phoenix attorney Craig Gillespie decided to ask Susan Kayler for help after he got zapped. In October 2005, the pair persuaded Maricopa Superior Court Judge Margaret Downie to toss Gillespie's ticket on a technicality.

Their argument hinged on the fact that citations are issued before any connection is made between the driver and the owner of the vehicle. State law requires an officer to certify there are "reasonable grounds" to believe the person listed on the ticket committed the infraction. But with a photo ticket, the officer's signature is a computer-generated image. The officer is real, but he or she had nothing to do with policing the violation.

At Redflex and other photo-enforcement companies, clerks use the license plate in the photo to look up the address of the vehicle's registered owner. But they don't have access to MVD photos, so no positive ID is made before a citation is sent out.

"There is no human involvement in the certification process whatsoever," Downie's ruling states, adding that the procedure clearly violates Arizona law.

While this seems like a bombshell that could overturn the whole photo-enforcement system, the appeal involved the facts of one case and is not considered a precedent-setter by the city courts.

Scottsdale prosecutor Caron Close says that well before the Gillespie case, Redflex clerks compared basic MVD information about a person — like gender, height, weight and hair color. They didn't always note for the legal record that such a comparison was made, though, and that's where prosecutors ran into trouble, she says. They've since corrected that problem.

Still, none of the cities compares the person in the violation photo with a driver's license photo before the citation is issued.

In Chandler, for instance, Officer Gunter says he makes no comparison at all. If the person and license plate are clearly pictured, he'll have the citation sent out. The vehicle owner, if he was not the driver, then must sort it all out.

Gillespie and Kayler believe it's possible to win more appeals based on the "no human involvement" premise. If the company can't establish how it tried to link the vehicle and driver, "it's the exact same argument, and a winner," Gillespie says...

...The possibility of such harsh punishment is having a serious effect on the system, and it's not necessarily what lawmakers intended. Karyn Klausner is a former municipal court judge who now handles numerous DUI cases as a lawyer at The Gillespie Law Firm in Phoenix. She says more and more defendants are choosing to pay for lawyers — and go to trial — rather than face the Legislature's mandatory minimums. And the defendants are winning.

"In many instances, people don't have anything to lose by going to trial," Klausner says. "So we fight like hell. It's inundating the prosecutors, costing the state lots of money — and they're losing. These are decent prosecutors, but in a trial, you never know what's going to happen."...

...Hernandez's attorney, Craig Gillespie, said he is "absolutely convinced" of his client's innocence, given that the baby vomited after visiting her father. He discounted Moss' estimate of when the injury occurred, calling it "just one doctor's opinion."

"The scientific literature suggests that these cases of alleged shaken-baby syndrome, it's far from a precise science, and the time frames can be expanded well beyond what a lot of medical people believe," he told me.

The McVickers are at least hoping to renew the civil-court order that was issued shortly after Olyvia was injured, requiring Hernandez to stay away from the family. Gillespie is asking a Chandler city judge to lift the order so that Hernandez can carry a gun again and resume patrol duties.

"He's just trying to get on with his life."

...Identifying drivers and matching them to the speeding car can be a tricky legal issue.

Phoenix lawyer Craig Gillespie proved that when he fought two photo-enforcement tickets on Dec. 28, 2004.

He was flashed twice, once at Scottsdale Road and Wilshire Street, and again at 66th Street and Osborn Road.

"The judge tossed one ticket because the picture was of such poor quality," he said.

He argued that the second ticket was illegal because Redflex Traffic Systems, which operates Scottsdale's speed cameras, was not matching camera images to the driver's license.

The Scottsdale judge disagreed. Gillespie appealed to Maricopa County Superior Court, where Judge Margaret Downie ruled in part that Scottsdale was violating state law by not comparing the photos.

"Under this system, no one can certify with the slightest degree of accuracy or truthfulness that the person receiving the ticket is the actual driver," Downie wrote in her decision. "There is no human involvement certification process whatever."

...Police said they raped women while they were unconscious and videotaped the acts.

The judge ruled after Craig Gillespie, Sanchez's attorney, argued that the tapes showed something other than what the prosecution alleged.

Gillespie argued that a Tempe police detective misrepresented the sexual encounters by telling grand jurors that the women were "passed out" and "totally unresponsive."

However, the videotapes confiscated by police, not shown to the grand jurors, show Sanchez had "consensual, mutual, and voluntary sexual intercourse, as evidenced by bodily movement and explicit conversation," Gillespie wrote.

Both defendants have been released from custody on bond pending the outcome of future grand jury matters.

"It is our intention to pursue the cases," said Bill FitzGerald, a Maricopa County Attorney Office spokesman, stating that state law prohibited further comment.

The cases were remanded in response to a rare move in which the prosecutor agreed with Gillespie.

"It is encouraging that the prosecutor agreed with us. I haven't seen it in 30 years," said Mike Vaughn, Diamond's attorney.

Police say Diamond and Sanchez first drugged, then taped their rapes of two women at their apartment at 1905 E. University Drive after they had lured them from local nightclubs March 18 and 23.

Gillespie said the state had allegedly "grossly misrepresented the facts."

...They were erroneously issued signed authorization documents, which they showed as they passed through security and as they boarded the plane. Such authorizations are supposed to be issued only to certain law enforcement officers, not to bail enforcement agents, as bounty hunters are called.

During trial, attorney Craig Gillespie said, the pilot told the court that he had even left the cockpit to ask a Southwest worker in the terminal about the authorization. Then he took off with Devore and Hudgins aboard.