New Twist in Fatal Orange County DUI Case
According to an Orange County Register report dated June 10, 2009, one of the year’s most talked about Southern California DUI cases just got a little more complicated. The April 9th drunken driving crash that took the lives of Anaheim Angels rookie pitcher, Nick Adenhart, along with two other young adults, merited national headlines when the story first broke. Now, new information has surfaced that may complicate the prosecution’s case.
The Facts Alleged
First, let’s recap the details of the accident. On April 9th, a 20 year-old Cal State student named Courtney Stewart was driving Adenhart and two other passengers, Jon Wilhite and Henry Pearson, when her Mitsubishi Eclipse was hit from the side by a minivan that had blasted through a red light. Stewart, Pearson, and Adenhart were all killed in the accident; Wilhite suffered seriously injuries and is still recuperating from them.
The driver of the minivan, Andrew Gallo, was tested two hours after the accident and found to have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.19% (CA’s legal limit is 0.08%).
New Twist -- A Double DUI
Now, more than two months after the crash, the Orange County Coroner has revealed that toxicology tests show that Courtney Stewart had also been DUI at the time of the accident! Stuart was a minor, so her BAC level of 0.06% definitely constituted DUI-level intoxication, per California law, which considers any minor driving with a BAC over 0.01% to be DUI.
The facts of the case (as alleged) still seem to support the prosecution’s argument that Gallo was solely responsible for the accident. However, the prosecution may now have more trouble proving its case against Gallo, particularly in the court of public opinion.
The general lesson here is that new facts can always emerge during the course of a San Diego DUI investigation that can complicate or even completely contradict one’s first impressions about relative guilt and innocence. That’s why it’s so important for people charged with drunk driving in San Diego to connect with capable, battle-proven attorneys, like Steven Brodsky. To find out more about the superlative track record and client-focused approach of Steven Brodsky and his associates, visit CriminalAttorneySanDiego.com now.
