Following up on an incident I blogged about a few times in the past, Terry Record plead guilty to a Class C felony of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, causing death. He was drinking at the Brass Flamingo before striking Jimmy Cash with his car and killing him.
Record faces two to eight years in prison at sentencing June 2, though Indiana law allows the judge to suspend all or part of the sentence.
Confusing story. They decided not to go for the Class B felony because a “recent” blood test showed his alcohol level was lower, even though the initial blood test showed he was over 0.15? Do they keep the blood and test it again a year later? Is there any science behind that?
I don’t practice that kind of law, so I have no idea. I also wondered if they kept blood and, if so, whether it would tell you anything useful later on.
I can image it would usefully tell you your alcohol level was lower than it actually was…
It’s unfortunate that this article neglects to mention that Terry recently failed a court-ordered alcohol monitoring test.
No way to tell from the article. It would not be standard procedure for the sample to be saved – nothing requires it. The original article links are broken, but I seem to remember that the original testing was done by the Department of Toxicology – not sure on that. Most drivers subject to blood test get their blood tested at the local hospital lab, but in death cases, the DoT will be brought in as their testing mechanisms are much more precise and reliable. If the testing was done at the DoT, I would imagine that the defendant hired a very good expert who reinterpreted the results – not retested the sample, which at this point, would be of questionable reliability.