« Law - "Cocaine sentencing disparities may drop" | Main | Ind. Decisions - "Indiana's Legal Precedent Regarding Personal Jurisdiction in Online Auction Cases" »

Monday, April 05, 2010

Ind. Courts - "DWI repeat offender admits 2 charges in fatal crash"

On Dec. 3, 2009, the ILB quoted from a Fort Wayne Journal Gazette story by Michael Zennie headed "Allen County Judges OK’d license for DWI repeat." Here are some breif quotes from that story:

When Brian Mansfield asked to have his driver’s license reinstated so he could drive to and from work, the Allen County sheriff at that time sent a letter to a judge urging him not to let Mansfield get behind the wheel again.

“He has demonstrated that he is a substantial risk to the public at large and I see no reason to modify the terms of his suspension,” Sheriff Jim Herman said in a two-sentence letter dated Sept. 29, 1999.

After Mansfield’s appeal went through the civil process, a judge in March 2000 reduced his felony conviction to a misdemeanor and dropped his lifetime suspension to 10 years, allowing him to drive again.

Prosecutors on Wednesday formally charged Mansfield, 52, of Monroeville, with aggravated battery, two counts each of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and criminal recklessness. He is accused of running a stop sign with a blood-alcohol level of 0.37 percent, almost five times the legal limit of 0.08 percent, and slamming into a sport utility vehicle carrying 45-year-old Jacqueline K. Yenser and her teenage daughter.

On March 21, 2010, an interesting ILB entry headed "More on 'New drunken driving law quickens blood sample process'" included this quote from a story by Rebecca S. Green of the FWJG:
“It was very unclear as to how someone became a certified phlebotomist,” McAlexander said. “They didn’t define what a phlebotomist was.”

That discrepancy – between state law and reality – was pointed out by the Indiana Court of Appeals in August. A Clinton County man, Roger Brown, appealed his conviction for operating a vehicle while intoxicated, in part on whether the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the admission of his blood sample because it was not done by anyone on the state-approved list. His blood was drawn at St. Vincent’s Hospital-Frankfort by a certified lab technician.

While the court upheld his conviction, saying there was enough other evidence Brown was legally drunk, it ruled the trial court should not have allowed the blood evidence to be presented, according to the ruling.

That opened the door for defense attorneys around the state to challenge the admissibility of some blood draws, which they did. And it’s an issue that has come up in the recent case of Brian Mansfield, an already-convicted drunken driver who is accused of causing a fatal crash last November in east Allen County.

This morning Ms. Green reported under the heading "DWI repeat offender admits 2 charges in fatal crash" in a FWJG story that is to appear in an expanded version Tuesday, that:
A 52-year-old Monroeville man admitted Monday to driving drunk and killing a 45-year-old mother just days before Thanksgiving.

Brian P. Mansfield pleaded guilty to a Class B felony charge of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.15 percent or greater causing a death. He also pleaded guilty to a Class D felony charge of criminal recklessness. * * *

According to the terms of a plea agreement with prosecutors, Mansfield faces a prison sentence of 16 years when he is sentenced in early May. Additional charges of aggravated battery, operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death and an additional count of criminal recklessness will be dismissed at sentencing.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 5, 2010 03:24 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts