BERNE  — A date has been set to weigh the evidence and testimony before a trial of misdemeanor charges against a woman who was arrested as she mourned in a cemetery last July.

Marcia Pangburn’s attorney, Lewis Oliver, made motions to dismiss the charges — resisting arrest and second-degree obstructing governmental administration — in Berne Town Court and requested the Dec. 16 hearing to suppress the evidence. He said after court on Nov. 18 he hopes the trial won’t go forward if he successfully demonstrates the prosecution’s evidence should be suppressed.

The hearings, known as Mapp (whether evidence should suppressed because it was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure) Dunaway (whether police had probable cause to detain and arrest) and Huntley (whether a confession was voluntary), will allow for a review of physical evidence, testimony, and Pangburn’s statements the night she took field sobriety tests under the watch of two sheriff’s deputies.

Pangburn admitted to police she had had a mixed drink earlier in the night. She was at a house-warming party, she said, when her brother made her a drink. Taken to the police substation, Pangburn’s breath test in the early morning hours indicated her blood-alcohol content of .01 was well below the legal limit, of .08, for driving.

She failed the field tests, the report says, used to evaluate driving ability and for probable cause in making certain arrests.

A copy of the video recorded from the dashboard of a patrol car, given to The Enterprise by Oliver, shows a deputy asked Pangburn to submit to an alcohol-screening device after she took the one-leg stand test, at which point she began to walk away, saying, “You guys, I’m going home. All right?  I’m going to walk home.” She stepped on a dirt path, turning away from the deputies.

Her home is a few hundred yards from the cemetery on Thompsons Lake Road.

When the two officers rushed to block her way and she refused to submit to the screening device, one of the officers asked her to put her hands behind her back, and she said, “No, I’m not doing it.” She lurched away and they grabbed her arms. She sat on the pavement of the road — saying “I’ll do it then, I’ll do it,” — as they pulled her rigid arms behind her back.

The prosecution maintains Pangburn said, “I’m done with this; I’m going home” and ran away from police as they were administering the tests.

Oliver argues the prosecution has not demonstrated probable cause for the arrest of his client for obstruction of governmental administration.

When contacted by The Enterprise in July, Sheriff Craig Apple maintained the deputies had probable cause to question Pangburn.

Apple said in July deputies followed tracks made by Pangburn’s SUV on the cemetery lawn and, the arrest report said, they smelled “a strong odor of alcohol” from her vehicle.

“Things they say in the complaint aren’t shown in the video,” Oliver said after court in November. The incident was recorded on video by a police car camera. Oliver declined to elaborate on what he would present at the hearings. He said that the deputies never told Pangburn she was under arrest.

Saying she did nothing wrong, Pangburn declined earlier offers from the district attorney’s office that she plea to the reduced charge of disorderly conduct or to adjourn the case in contemplation of dismissal.