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van
02-13-2009, 07:57 AM
EDMONTON - A judge has thrown out five charges of impaired driving against a former Edmonton police constable who is on trial after a fiery off-duty crash.

Provincial court Judge Michael Allen says there were insufficient grounds for the arresting officers to take a breath sample from Douglas Kurtis Brown after the collision last may.

brown, who is 30, was charged with five counts of impaired driving, five counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and one count of blowing over the legal limit.

The Crown alleges he ran a red light and T-boned a pick up triuck, leaving its young male driver with severe injuries and burns. Brown still faces the five counts of dangerous driving.

- Calgary Sun
95EagleAWD
02-13-2009, 08:07 AM
there were insufficient grounds for the arresting officers to take a breath sample

Brown still faces the five counts of dangerous driving.

So there's not enough evidence to convict on an impaired charge, but he still faces 5 counts of Dangerous Driving?

What's the problem here?
DayGlow
02-13-2009, 08:24 AM
Hard to tell from info given. I know there is case law saying that a crash by itself cannot be used as evidence of drinking unless there is no other way to explain the crash. Stupid I know, but the crap you have to deal with in impared's.

10 to 1 this will be appealed to a higher court and hopefully all the stupid lawyer tricks will be thrown out.
UndrgroundRider
02-13-2009, 08:50 AM
Our legal system sucks.

The act of investigating the offense is now deemed unreasonable because the offense could not be proven before the investigation began. The courts just love that circular logic.

:thumbsdow
Masked Bandit
02-13-2009, 09:24 AM
I know this will get more attention because the offender is a cop but people weasel out of impaireds like this all the time.
phil98z24
02-13-2009, 10:01 AM
Originally posted by Masked Bandit
I know this will get more attention because the offender is a cop but people weasel out of impaireds like this all the time.

You said it... and the worst part of this is the fact that it was a cop, and he of all people should be made an example of IF he was in fact impaired.