MICHIGAN:

Defendant didn’t realize he'd hit a motorcyclist

Defendant Richard Benson got off work at Metalwork's, went to Bud’s Tap Room, drank four or five beers and headed home Sept. 13, 2005, but his evening drive home on Pere Marquette Highway was interrupted by an accident in which he rear-ended a stopped SUV.
He knew he crashed into the back of an SUV but didn’t realize he’d crushed a motorcyclist in the process.
 
“He kept asking, ‘Why’d that car stop? Why’d that car stop?’,” said Mason County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kristen Bantle. “I said I didn’t know and asked, ‘What about the motorcycle?” and he said, ‘What motorcycle?’”
Benson is on trial for a charge of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death in relation to the incident.
Michigan State Police Forensic Scientist Kimberly Dailey testified Benson’s blood alcohol level at the time was .16, twice the legal limit of .08.
Bantle testified Tuesday that she dealt with Benson at the scene of the accident between the Twin Bridges. She said he admitted to drinking and failed several field sobriety tests.
However, the jury will not be able to consider the results of two of those field sobriety tests after Judge Richard Cooper ruled one test was not admissible because of Benson’s eye condition and another test had no recognized scientific legitimacy.

TRIAL

Cooper ruled Benson’s strabismus, or cross-eyed condition for which he wore glasses, prevented the Benson’s horizontal gaze nystagmus test from being admissible. The test is a standardized field sobriety test used by officers.
“The nystagmus test may not be used as evidence,” Cooper said in his ruling. “I find that the officer used her best judgment — her judgment was valid. It’s not the use of the test that’s wrong. … The test is OK, but Mr. Benson is not an appropriate subject for the test.”
Bantle allowed Benson to keep his thick glasses on during the test, which the defense argued could have skewed the results of the test.
Defense attorney Bob Springstead also successfully challenged the admissibility of an alphabet test Bantle testified she administered to Benson by asking him to say the letters L through S.
“(The test has) no scientific reliability,” Springstead said. “If there is not any scientific basis, (the test) should not be admitted.”
Bantle went on to testify that she obtained Benson’s permission to draw blood for an blood alcohol level test at Memorial Medical Center before he was taken to jail. Phlebotomist Mitch Hodges testified he took the sample.
In cross examination, Springstead took issue with holes in Bantle’s incident report.
“I left some things out of the report,” Bantle said. “I left out some details. I think I was fair to Mr. Benson — I treated him fair and (I think the) testing was fair — but the report could have been better.”
Springstead pointed out several inconsistencies with the report and Bantle’s testimony, mostly omissions in the written report dealing with timing of certain events, her instructions to Benson and procedures of his arrest.
More than a dozen students from the West Shore Community College police academy were in attendance for the testimony.