By Bobby Kerlik
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Copyright 2007 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
EVANS CITY, Pa. — Prosecutors’ attempts to prove a Cranberry ambulance driver caused a deadly crash because she was drunk — even though a blood test an hour later showed she was under the legal limit — could force the courts to clarify Pennsylvania’s drunken driving laws, lawyers said.
Shanea Leigh Climo, 22, of Evans City, who faces a preliminary hearing Friday, is accused of having a blood-alcohol content of 0.092 percent on Sept. 23, when police say she raced her ambulance through a red light and crashed into a car, killing two Mercer County men.
A blood test an hour after the crash put her blood-alcohol content at 0.07 percent — under the 0.08 legal limit to drive.
Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala said his office, using an extrapolation formula, can prove it was 0.092 percent at the time of the collision.
Several defense attorneys, including Climo’s, say that would be unfair because a 2003 overhaul of the state’s drunken driving laws essentially stripped them of the ability to use extrapolation as a defense.
Attorney Carl Parise, who handles more than 50 drunken driving cases a year, said the case almost certainly will be appealed.
“I don’t have a problem if they want to start using retrograde extrapolation again,” Parise said. “It’s almost like they want to have it both ways.”
Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman agrees.
“If the DA says he is entitled to present evidence to show what the blood-alcohol (level) was at the time of the crash, the defense should have that same right to show why they weren’t drunk (at the time of the crash in all cases),” Cashman said.
“I think it opens the floodgates for defense attorneys in other cases to use extrapolation to show why their client was not drunk.”
The law change made it easier to convict people, because prosecutors were no longer required to prove the blood-alcohol level at the time of driving, lawyers said. Instead, anyone who registers a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 or higher for up to two hours after driving can be found guilty of drunken driving.
The change effectively eliminated extrapolation arguments by defense attorneys who could claim a client’s blood-alcohol level might have been below the legal limit at the time of an incident only to spike above 0.08 between the arrest and blood test.
The legislation was designed, in part, to eliminate the so-called battle of medical experts in each DUI trial, state Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless, said.
Orie said the law wasn’t intended to prohibit extrapolation if prosecutors decide it’s necessary.
In a statement, Zappala’s office said that nothing in the law prevents prosecutors from using extrapolation evidence to prove drunken driving, although the law change made the technique unnecessary in most cases.
Defense attorney Stephen Misko, who represents Climo, said called the prosecution hypocritical.
“If the courts allow this, it opens the door for the defense to again use extrapolation in DUI cases,” he said. “If you let the prosecution use it, you have to let the defense use it.”
The state Supreme Court did not rule on the extrapolation issue in May, when it upheld the 2003 law in a 4-2 vote that overturned a previous ruling by Cashman.
He declared the law unconstitutional in July 2005 while hearing the case of Bradley Duda, of West View.
Duda was tested an hour after an accident and found to have a blood-alcohol content of 0.081, according to court documents. His attorney argued the state must prove what the level was at the time of driving.
Determining Climo’s blood-alcohol content at the time of driving is key because a conviction of DUI-related vehicular homicide carries a three-year mandatory prison sentence.
Climo is facing two counts each of involuntary manslaughter, homicide by vehicle, vehicular homicide while driving under the influence, DUI and other traffic offenses. The crash at Route 19 and Brush Creek Road killed Douglas Stitt, 38, of Jefferson, and Phillip Bacon, 31, of Sharpsville. A patient in the ambulance, described as a man in his 90s with heart problems and a do-not-resuscitate order, died later.