It's fantastic to watch and a good example of why trials should be televised. The public can see what's going on and lawyers can learn from the proceedings.
It's a DUI Manslaughter case. Here are the details from the Palm Beach Post:
There were shots dropped into pints of Guinness and drinks with names like "Mind Eraser."
Traffic homicide prosecutor Ellen Roberts described each one in detail this morning, letting jurors that by the time International Polo Club founder John Goodman caused the crash that killed Scott Wilson, he'd had the equivalent of 16 to 18 drinks at a charity event and an impromptu after-party.
When Goodman's Bentley hit Wilson's car, Roberts said "it literally pushed the little Hyundai into the canal," and Wilson eventually drowned.
These were the first statements jurors heard today in the DUI manslaughter trial of Goodman, heir to a Texas heat and air conditioning fortune.
And as expected, Goodman's defense attorney Roy Black told jurors that Goodman's Bentley malfunctioned shortly before the crash, surging forward while Goodman frantically tried to stop it.
Black promised engineers would testify to prove this occurred, and Black said jurors will also hear evidence that Goodman left the crash scene to get help but was hampered because he had suffered some painful injuries – including a broken wrist, fractured sternum and an aggravation of a previous back injury.
That pained, confused journey took him to a sophisticated barn belonging to an acquaintance, Kris Kampsen, where he found what has been described as a "man cave."
"He sits down on the couch, he's hurting. This man is in pain and he sits down and right in front of him, there is this bar," Black told jurors. "He takes out one of the bottles and he swigs it down."
That's why, Black said, Goodman's blood alcohol content was at more than twice the level at which drivers are presumed impaired when his blood was drawn some three hours after the accident.
Black said that though Goodman had three drinks over the course of the night, witnesses will testify that he was lucid as he was leaving the Players Club Bar and restaurant, his last stop before the crash.
5 comments:
ridiculous story... not even black could have maintained a straight face
Black is the best but I'm betting even he can't sell that story.
black loses a lot - it just does not get published.
his 15 minutes stretched to an hour, but times up
The vehicle malfunction defense is funnier than the wardrobe malfunction defense, but keep your laughter to yourself because Casey Anthony showed us that stranger things have happened in the Florida courts. Deep down, a lot of criminal defense lawyers want other criminal defense lawyers to lose at trial so they can feel better about themselves and their own deficiencies. This is pride. Check yourselves.
Ridiculous!
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