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E-mail StoryWoman will face lesser charges in alcohol-involved traffic death
| Thursday, May 8 2008 5:40 PM
Last Updated: Friday, May 9 2008 7:14 AM
A second-degree murder charge against a woman in an alcohol-involved traffic death was dismissed Thursday at her preliminary hearing.
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The dismissal, however, will be challenged in future hearings in Kern County Superior Court, the prosecutor said.
Visiting Judge Eugene L. Huseman from Santa Barbara said a declaration defendant Donna Brinkman signed was not enough evidence by itself to justify a murder charge.
About two months before the 44-year-old Brinkman struck and killed a pedestrian in McKittrick, she signed a court acknowledgment in a misdemeanor drunken driving case that she could be charged with murder if she killed someone while driving drunk.
The acknowledgments have been required in drunken driving cases since 2005.
Second-degree murder can be filed in a traffic death if a defendant is aware that what he or she is doing in inherently dangerous and does so anyway with “a conscious disregard for human life,” a 1982 law says.
The judge said there was no evidence Brinkman had a malevolent heart and there was no evidence suggesting she had done anything other than drive down Highway 33 under the influence of alcohol.
A breath test right after the crash showed her blood-alcohol level was .125 percent, which is above the .08 level the law presumes to be under the influence. A blood test taken more than two hours later showed her level at .09.
The judge ordered Brinkman to stand trial on felony charges of vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving, as well as a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license.
Huseman lowered Brinkman’s bail from $250,000 to $50,000. She’s been in custody since Feb. 19.
Despite the ruling on the murder charge, Deputy District Attorney Nicholas Lackie said he will file a murder charge against her before her May 21 arraignment.
He said he expects he will go through additional hearings on whether that charge can be brought to a trial.
Brinkman was represented by Deputy Public Defender Michael Webb who argued that Brinkman “was clearly distraught” about the crash and her level alcohol was “not astronomically great.”
She cried during Thursday’s hearing.
She was driving north at night July 28 on Highway 33 near D Street in McKittrick when she struck 76-year-old Robert Morrison as he was walking across the intersection.
There was no indication she was exceeding the speed limit of 45 mph at that intersection, California Highway Patrol officers reported.
Second-degree murder carries a penalty of 15 years to life. The maximum sentence Brinkman faces under her current charges is 10 years in prison.