We had telephonic search warrants and then went to faxing warrants to the court. It cut down a lot of the time. Yeah the court time can suck. I think it gets exaggerated a lot. Overwhelming I did a lot of interviews but never went court due to pleas.
I only went to trial one time as the arresting Officer for an aggravated DUI. I probably had less than four years on. I was never interviewed on the case. I was surprised it went. I was flagged down by an off duty DPS guy on a crazy busy night with no motors. When I approached the suspect I asked him what was going on. He says I’m going to get another DUI. He was suspended from a prior DUI. His BAC was in the .15-20 range. When we went to court I had to say he said “I’m going to get a DUI. There was another issue I couldn’t testify to that would be a mistrial if I brought it up. The defense attorney kept trying to get me to bring it up.
The other issue that was interesting was his defense was he had done four shots right before driving, he wasn’t impaired/over the limit when I arrested him, and his BAC rose over the limit .10 while I was processing him. The criminalist who tested the blood had to testify why that wasn’t the case. There’s a term for this but I forget the name. That added a lot of time. That’s why AZ law says .08 within two hours of driving to elim8nate that issue.
IIRC it was a two day trial. He was found guilty.