Intoxication Manslaughter / State v. J.J.

Client was a US Marshall and went to meet some of his buddies after training off of 1604. As he was driving home, he followed his GPS. When he got to 1604 by UTSA, the GPS told him to take a left. There was no left turn sign or direction of travel market at the T in the road. He mistakenly turned the wrong way up the freeway. By the time he realized he was going the wrong way and tried to turn his truck around, a young lady wasn’t paying attention and tried to take the exit. In the blink of an eye, they had a head on collision and she was gone. Client performed SFSTs fine and they took his blood. We actually had 2 experts in this case. One expert said this was the worst lab she had ever seen, between switching samples, improper treatment of the standard, high turnover, and the lab analyst being married to a man who spent 18 years in prison for intoxicated manslaughter. The other expert said in his 40+ years of looking at labs, it was the second worst lab he has seen and reviewed. The jury realized that our client was not intoxicated and returned a verdict of Not Guilty. They sent a big message to not use that lab in Bexar county for anymore blood testing. However, our client did not go home. The DAs decided to charge him with Reckless Manslaughter for going the wrong way on the freeway and that was reckless. Our client had never been arrested, was a government agent, with 2 kids and a family. It was just too emotional and the jury had to get him for something. It was one of the only cases I truly feel like I won and lost at the same time. I am still heartbroken over this verdict. While I have to trust the jury’s analysis, they chose to give this man prison instead of probation. I don’t know how they got to that decision. I truly believe in my heart that this man made a simple mistake and I get he was convicted, but he was not an animal. The prison system is hopelessly broken and should be reserved for extreme cases, one of which our client is not.