GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY
Jason Sterling drove down the middle of Goldsmith Lane, straddling the center line for about a half-mile on April 14, 2010, before he was pulled over, then failed a field-sobriety test and recorded a blood-alcohol level twice Kentucky’s legal limit.
But when Sterling’s case went to trial, Jefferson District Judge Donald Armstrong found him not guilty of driving drunk, court records show. Armstrong’s reason? He could find no law against driving down the middle of the road, so the officer who arrested Sterling had no reason to pull him over.
Anthony Cordova drove his Chevy Silverado into a wall on June 14, 2009, was found passed out behind the wheel and had a 0.26 blood-alcohol content — more than three times the 0.08 legal limit — when he was tested an hour later at a hospital, according to court records.
But at trial, Jefferson District Judge Katie King found Cordova not guilty of drunken driving, saying she couldn’t read hospital records that contained his blood-alcohol level.
“I can’t act as a doctor,” she said. “That would be like a doctor coming in here and practicing law.”
The outcomes aren’t unusual: A Courier-Journal review of 200 hundred DUI trials found that when defendants in Jefferson County request a trial by a judge — rather than a jury — the odds are good that they will go free.
http://www.courier-journal.com/artic...DUI-defendants
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