Kane County Circuit Judge F. Keith Brown ruled that evidence of Kane County Circuit Judge David Hall's blood-alcohol level obtained after his 2008 DUI arrest is not admissible in his upcoming trial, according to the Chicago Daily Herald. Despite the setback, prosecutors tell reporters they plan to move ahead with their case.
You may recall that Mr. Hall was arrested in April 2008 and charged with a DUI and resisting arrest. Police used pepper spray when he allegedly refused to get out of his car when asked.
This blog has written about the incident here and here, but Mr. Hall's Illinois DUI attorney filed a pretrial motion to dismiss evidence. He argues that police violated protocol, pointing out that there was no record of police asking hospital workers to test his blood for alcohol until several days after the arrest.
Physicians discovered that Mr. Hall had an irregular heartbeat once he got to the hospital and more than three vials of blood were drawn for medical testing. The same blood also was tested for alcohol content. Douglas Zeit and Jason Mercure, Mr. Hall's Illinois DUI attorneys, successfully argued that the blood is not admissible as evidence because it was drawn for medical purposes.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, had argued that the defense failed to prove that the blood was improperly handled or stored and that the results should be considered reliable.
A chemist for the Illinois State Police laboratory indicated that Mr. Hall's samples had a 0.107 blood-alcohol content.
To make matters worse for prosecutors, arresting officer Jesse Goldsmith died just two months after the incident. Also, Mr. Hall's attorneys allege that police erased video of the arrest that may have shed more light on his alleged resistance to the officers.
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