ATLANTA --- The officer who arrested state Rep. Ben Harbin on suspicion of drunken driving said Tuesday that he wouldn't have missed a hearing on the suspension of the Evans Republican's driver's license if not for a court procedure legal observers called rare but not unprecedented.

Atlanta Officer Bryan French said official-looking documents faxed to him just days before an Aug. 14 administrative hearing misled him into thinking the hearing at the Office of State Administrative Hearings had been rescheduled.

"Had they not contacted me and sent me this motion for continuance, I would have been at the court appearance," he said.

Mr. Harbin appealed the Department of Driver Services' action to suspend his license, and the department requested that Administrative Hearings, which resolves disputes between individuals and state agencies, rule on the matter, a standard procedure in such challenges.

Mr. Harbin and his attorney denied that there was any intent to mislead the officer with the document, which consisted of a "motion for a continuance" or a request to move the hearing to a later date. Instead, the attorney says he was required to send the copy to the officer.

Administrative law Judge Elbert Hackney never ruled on the motion and dismissed the case because Officer French did not attend the hearing, according to Robert Highsmith, Mr. Harbin's attorney.

Mr. Highsmith believed there was little room for confusion.

"It's clearly a motion and a request, and it's got my signature on it. It can't be confused with something the court would do," Mr. Highsmith said.

Several attorneys who make a living representing drunken-driving suspects in Atlanta say such motions are rarely executed in the same fashion, but that's not to say there's anything wrong with the way it was handled, as Mr. Highsmith followed standard legal procedure in sending the motion.

"It's not the fact that no one had ever done it before, (but) kudos to the attorney for being thorough," Atlanta attorney Charles Demisses Graham said. "I don't think the attorney did anything unethical."