As any Los Angeles DUI defense attorney will tell you, a felony DUI can have severe consequences. Felony DUI cases ususally portray the defendent as a terrible person, and juries rarely have any sympathy for someone who caused injuries or death via an alleged drunk driving incident.
Toxicology reports from a deadly crash on New York's Taconic State Parkway are drawing outrage as they reveal that Diane Schuler, 36, had a blood alcohol level of .19% and traces of marijuana in her blood stream before causing a collision that left eight people, including Schuler herself, dead. Officials also report finding a broken bottle of vodka in the backseat of her Ford minivan. Results of the toxicology tests reveal that Schuler had six grams of alcohol in her stomach that had yet to be metabolized and that she may have smoked marijuana anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour prior to the crash. Police records indicate that Schuler had called her brother from a rest stop saying she felt ill prior to the crash. He advised her to wait for him to pick her and the children up, advice Schuler clearly did not heed.
Schuler was reportedly driving home from a weekend camping trip with her two year-old daughter, five year-old son and three young nieces in the car when she was seen driving the wrong way on the highway's northbound lanes before she slammed head-first into an SUV carrying three adult men, all of whom also died. The lone survivors of the collision were Schuler's five year-old son and the occupants of a third vehicle involved in the crash, who all escaped with relatively minor injuries. Several family members of the victims are now calling for a homicide investigation, claiming Schuler had alcohol and drug problems that her family knew about and that she may have been driving under the influence of alcohol when she left the campgrounds in Sullivan County, New York earlier that day. Police are still investigating.
While driving under the influence is a serious criminal offence in and of itself, fatalities occurring as a result of DUI bring on a whole new level of serious consequence as they are charged as a felony DUI instead of a misdemeanor. Many cases of DUI-related fatalities are tried as vehicular manslaughter, a felony criminal offense in Los Angeles, and can garner up to 10 years in a state prison upon conviction. The average case of vehicular manslaughter related to driving under the influence of either drugs or alcohol in Los Angeles would be punished by as many as four years in state prison. In cases of gross negligence or recklessness, such as in Schuler's case where the driver's blood alcohol content was well over the legal limit, as many as 10 years could be handed down as punishment. With so much of your life and freedom on the line, you need an experienced criminal defense attorney by your side if you are facing a DUI-related criminal charge such as a felony DUI. Call the attorneys at Kestenbaum, Eisner & Gorin, LLP today to start preparing your defense.
