GILMER (TYLER MORNING TELEGRAPH) - A state district judge placed a Pittsburg woman
on five years probation of a two-year state jail term Tuesday, one week
after an Upshur County jury convicted her of driving while intoxicated
with child passenger.
Courtney Farnsworth Lemmon, 23, elected to
be sentenced by trial Judge Lauren Parish of the 115th District Court
rather than the jury, which convicted Ms. Lemmon of one of three counts
of the offense.
Ms. Lemmon, whose three children were with her
when the offense occurred, was acquitted of the other two counts, said
Upshur County Assistant District Attorney Natalie Miller, who jointly
prosecuted with fellow Assistant District Attorney Camille Henson.
Ms.
Lemmon must serve 30 days in county jail as a condition of probation
and also was sentenced to 400 hours of community service — the maximum
amount for the offense, Ms. Miller said.
Judge Parish also ordered the defendant take a parenting class.
Ms.
Lemmon was charged with committing three counts of DWI with child
passenger the night of April 28, when her children, all younger than
six, were in the back seat of her vehicle. She pleaded not guilty and
was represented by Tyler attorney John Eastland.
Texas
Department of Public Safety Trooper Sandy Mac Taylor stopped the
defendant on Texas Highway 155 in a rural area for a defective headlight
only five minutes after Winona police stopped her for the same
violation, Ms. Miller said.
The prosecutor quoted Judge Parish as
saying she had given considerable thought to the sentence, which Ms.
Miller praised as "a just outcome" and "very fair." Ms. Miller said she
did not seek a specific sentence, but that the defense applied for
probation.
Eastland told the Tyler Morning Telegraph, "I'm
impressed with the fairness of Judge Parish." He quoted her as saying
she "had thought all week concerning this," and that she cited his
client's need to support her children and not lose her job.
Eastland
said the judge also commented that this was Ms. Lemmon's "first brush
with the law, and that hopefully she will learn a lesson from it."
Ms. Miller said a video of the traffic stop
presented during the two-day trial showed Ms. Lemmon initially told
Taylor she hadn't drank anything that night, but that he smelled
alcohol, had her step out of her car and performed a field sobriety
test.
"She started changing her story," saying she had been
drinking in Austin and that something had spilled in her car either the
day before or a few days earlier, Ms. Miller said. Ms. Lemmon wanted a
breathalyzer test, but state law requires a mandatory blood test, the
prosecutor said.
The defendant's blood alcohol level was .133,
more than the minimum .08 level to be considered legally intoxicated,
Ms. Miller said.
The defense contended Ms. Lemmon wasn't intoxicated at the time she was driving.
But
the Tyler DPS chemist who tested her blood, Karen Ream, "kind of blew
that defense out of the water" by saying the stop happened about 11:15
p.m. and her blood was drawn at 11:40, Ms. Miller said.
Thus,
"there wasn't that much time" for the level to rise or fall, and Ms.
Ream testified the blood alcohol concentration was "very close to what
it was at the time she (the defendant) was driving," the prosecutor
said.
Eastland also maintained that machines that test blood
alcohol levels "can be wrong." But the state obtained four blood alcohol
concentration readings on Ms. Lemmon, which were all very close, if not
identical, Ms. Miller added.
Jurors took about two hours to
convict the defendant of one charge and acquit her of the other two,
although three children were in the vehicle, the prosecutor said.
Ms.
Miller said she believed the children were in legally required child
safety seats when their mother was stopped. The law on driving while
intoxicated with a child passenger applies to children under age 15.
Ms.
Lemmon neither testified nor presented any witnesses in the trial.
State witnesses besides Taylor and Ms. Ream included Neil Sheffield, an
ETMC-Gilmer hospital technician who drew the blood; and DPS Trooper
Robbie Moore, who took it to Tyler for testing.
