A New york woman is being charged with aggravated drunk driving after a car crash that left the woman trapped in her own car. The 35-year-old woman was injured but refused further medical attention after being evaluated at the scene of the accident. A police officer discovered the accident and alerted the local fire department to help assist the woman out of the car.
The woman’s blood alcohol level was reportedly above .18. she was arrested and charged with aggravated DUI, driving while intoxicated, operating her vehicle at an unreasonable speed, consumption of alcohol in a vehicle and unlawful possession of marijuana. The woman was arraigned and placed in jail on $1,500 bond.
Aggravated DUI charges can be very serious and can carry significant jail time. As with any crime, there needs to be enough evidence present to prove the accused committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Often, there are no witnesses to a DUI other than the driver charged with a DUI. A person accused of a crime cannot be made to testify against themselves. Thus, prosecutors use other types of evidence such as blood alcohol tests and evidence of a crash to help build a case against a defendant. Here, the prosecutor may use the blood alcohol test and the fact that she was in an apparent crash wherein she needed to be rescued as evidence that she was driving intoxicated, which caused that crash.
The defendant in this case may wish to seek the counsel of an experienced criminal defense attorney. The attorney may go over all of the evidence, including the blood alcohol test and the police report of the crash, to see whether it was obtained correctly and whether it can actually be used against the defendant.
Source: Little Falls Times, “Frankfort woman charged with aggravated DWI”, September 27, 2013
