🤕 North Oxford Man Gets New OUI Trial After Lawyer Forgets to Present Crucial Evidence to Jury

On Sunday March 24, 2019 at about 2:30 in the morning John Fedorisky crashed his car on the eastbound side of I-290 in Worcester. The crash caused John to hit his head on the car’s windshield. State police soon arrived and suspected John of drunk driving.

Troopers had John perform a field sobriety test which, in their opinion, he failed. He was placed under arrest and charged with operating under the influence of alcohol and negligent operation of a motor vehicle.

Prior to trial, John’s attorney and the prosecutor agreed that a post-crash photo of John’s head injury could be presented to jurors.

John hoped that evidence of his head injury would help explain his poor performance on the field sobriety test.

Unfortunately, John’s lawyer forgot to present the photo to the jury. Instead, the arresting trooper was simply asked to testify about the extent of the injury. Unsurprisingly, the trooper downplayed the injury’s severity claiming that he “didn’t note the laceration on the [defendant’s] forehead” and saw only “blood on the [the defendant’s] nose.”

The jury convicted John of both charges. He soon got a new lawyer who promptly filed a motion for a new trial arguing that John received “ineffective assistance of counsel” at trial.

The motion judge agreed with John and allowed the motion. The Commonwealth appealed.

The Appeals Court sided with John. In their opinion the justices note that

The unadmitted photograph…was telling. It showed an approximately one-inch long swollen laceration held together by stitches on the defendant’s forehead.

Failure to present such evidence at trial deprived John of a genuine legal defense. Thus, the lawyer’s omission did in fact amount to “ineffective assistance of counsel.”

The trial judge permissibly found that forgetting to admit an important exhibit fell measurably below that of an ordinary, fallible lawyer, and that it likely deprived the defendant of an otherwise available, substantial ground of defense.

To read the full opinion, click the document below.