KY lawmaker to face jury trial on drunken-driving charge after challenging evidence
A state lawmaker is scheduled for jury trial Sept. 23 on a drunken driving charge after unsuccessfully trying this week to have evidence in the case tossed.
Rep. Derek Lewis, R-London, filed two motions to suppress evidence in Laurel District Court, hoping to raise questions about how police conducted his arrest. But at a hearing Tuesday, Judge W. L. “Skip” Hammons Jr. denied both of the suppression motions.
“Quite frankly, one of them was a little bit of a reach,” Lewis’ attorney, Conrad Cessna, said Thursday.
Lewis did not return a call seeking comment.
Lewis, first elected in 2018, represents the 90th House district, including Clay, Laurel and Leslie counties. He will face Democrat Ralph Hoskins of Manchester in the Nov. 3 election.
Laurel County Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Mehler arrested Lewis on a road near his home at 1:55 a.m. on April 16, just a few hours after the 2020 General Assembly adjourned in Frankfort.
Mehler saw a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck in a ditch, the engine still running, according to the arrest report. Lewis climbed out of the truck, Mehler wrote, unsteady on his feet, slurring his words and with “a very strong odor of an alcoholic beverage” on his breath.
Lewis was belligerent at the scene, Mehler wrote. He refused to perform a field sobriety test or to provide breath or blood samples to check his alcohol level, Mehler wrote.
“I ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing you want!” Lewis told the deputy, according to the arrest report. “Call (Laurel County Sheriff) John Root!”
“It was obvious he was manifestly under the influence of alcohol, and he was placed under arrest,” Mehler wrote.
In two different motions, Lewis asked the court to suppress evidence from the arrest. The deputy — who was responding to another call when he spotted the truck — had no probable cause to make contact with Lewis or suspect him of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, according to one motion.
State law “defines ‘operator’ as the person in actual physical control of the vehicle,” that motion stated. “The vehicle was in a ditch and not being operated at the time of the stop.”
In the other motion, Lewis argued that evidence of his refusing to take the blood test — an aggravator in DUI cases that can enhance the penalty — should be suppressed. State law says blood tests must be administered within two hours to be scientifically reliable, the motion stated. But there is no evidence showing when the truck went into the ditch, the motion stated.
“They have no idea when the accident occurred because they weren’t responding to that accident. They were responding to a breaking-and-entering down the road from where the accident occurred,” Cessna said Thursday.
“Mr. Lewis is presumed innocent,” Cessna added. “It’s their burden to prove his guilt. We don’t have to prove or provide them with any theories. That is their job.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
