Posted 8:12 am Friday, October 10, 2008
Frisco Woman Convicted of Driving While Intoxicated on I-20
By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer
A 40-year-old Frisco woman was convicted Thursday of driving while intoxicated on Interstate 20 with her three young children in the car.
Staff Writer
A 40-year-old Frisco woman was convicted Thursday of driving while intoxicated on Interstate 20 with her three young children in the car.
Lisa Manning Thompson was found guilty of the felony by a Smith County jury in 241st District Judge Jack Skeen Jr.'s court after about 30 minutes of deliberation. The jury will begin hearing evidence in the punishment trial at 9 a.m. today.
Kevin Johnson, a truck driver, testified he was driving west on I-20 during the night of May 22 when a tan SUV got in front of him and began swerving. He said he followed the vehicle for about 30 minutes, from Longview to Lindale. After about 10 miles, he called police to report the erratic and dangerous driver. He felt that the driver was impaired because of her driving, he added.
Johnson said he saw a police car parked on the side of the interstate waiting for them when the SUV swerved off the road and nearly hit the officer, who had to take evasive action so he wouldn't get hit. Johnson said that, as he drove past, he saw the officer drive up behind the SUV, put his police lights on and stop the vehicle.
Lindale Police Officer Luke Wineland said he responded to the truck driver's call at 11:55 p.m. and was waiting on the side of the road when the tan SUV almost hit him. He said he pulled the vehicle over and got the driver, Ms. Thompson, out of the car. He said she stumbled, had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech and failed a field sobriety test. He said when he asked if she had drank or taken anything, she said, "No." He said she failed more tests he administered and he arrested her for DWI. He said she refused to take a Breathalyzer or blood test.
Jurors watched an hour-long video of the traffic stop, in which the defendant told the officer repeatedly she was tired and had been driving all day on her way to Dallas to meet her husband. She said she was "not on anything" but just before she was arrested, said she drank one daiquiri. When she was handcuffed, she started crying and said "I have three kids in the car."
The officers told her they would safely drive the children to the police station and call her husband to pick up the children and call Child Protective Services.
Wineland said there was no doubt in his mind that Ms. Thompson was intoxicated.
Lindale Police Officer Mike Renfro said he found a five-liter open box of wine on the front-passenger seat floor, beneath the legs of one of the children, and a 32-ounce cup with wine in it in the driver's side door compartment. He said he babysat the children at the station while they waited for their father.
Officer Steven Wilson, who also assisted Wineland at the scene of the traffic stop, said a 12-year-old boy, and two girls, ages 9 and 6, were found sleeping in Ms. Thompson's car.
DEFENDANT TESTIFIES
Ms. Thompson testified she loaded up her children and left Baton Rouge, La., about 6 p.m. to drive to Dallas. She said she drank one-half of a daiquiri before she left and did not drink any of the wine from the box or glass, which had been in the car for about a week.
She said she was tired when driving and did not feel like she had too much to drink. She said she also took four NoDoz pills and some allergy medicine and she was drowsy, but didn't feel like she was putting others in danger. She said she could have swerved a little bit but she was driving a new car and the strong wind affected her driving. She said she was also trying to find something in a bag while driving.
Ms. Thompson said she didn't believe she was weaving and running other cars off the road but the truck driver had no reason to lie, although, she said, each person sees things differently. She said she guessed the officer was telling the truth from his perspective.
She said she may have stumbled when she got out of her car, but she had been driving for six hours. She performed the field sobriety tests to the best of her ability and said she was "shocked" when the officer arrested her for driving intoxicated because, "I knew I wasn't drinking."
"I wouldn't let my kids go with someone who's been drinking," she said, adding that she wouldn't have driven them if she was intoxicated.
Ms. Thompson said she refused to take a Breathalyzer test because she doesn't trust them, but said she would take a blood test.
When asked by prosecutors when the last time she drank alcohol was, she said about a month or two ago she had a couple of sips of a margarita and, although she wasn't to consume alcohol as a condition of her bond release, she said "I just didn't even think about it."
She also said she has driven even though her license is suspended because she needed to take her children to sports practices.
Judge Skeen revoked Ms. Thompson's bond after her testimony of the violations and after the jurors had left the courtroom. He raised her bond from $5,000 to $25,000.
ATTORNEYS ARGUE
During closing arguments, Assistant Smith County District Attorney Joe Murphy said the evidence in the case showed the defendant was guilty of driving intoxicated with child passengers. He said she made excuses for everything the witnesses said.
He said Ms. Thomson was weaving and running people off the road and, to make matters worse, she had three little children in her car while she was driving drunk.
"It is a miracle that I'm not holding pictures up here of dead people. ... The reason I'm not is because of Kevin Johnson and Officer Wineland," Murphy said, adding that Ms. Thompson endangered the lives of her children and everyone else on the road that night.
Defense attorney John Eastland said Johnson could have been the kind of driver who takes fault with every driver on the highway expect for himself and gets mad at people who repeatedly speed up and slow down or drive differently.
He said Wineland testified to support his job and the arrest.
Eastland said that, other than stumbling once when she got out of her vehicle, the rest of the video of Ms. Thompson was "crystal clear" and she did not slur her speech.
If she had even suspected she was under the influence, she would not have started the car with her children in it, Eastland said. If she had become so, she would have stopped, he added.
Murphy said if she had made a terrible mistake, she wouldn't do it again for the sake of her children. But she didn't adhere to the terms and conditions of her bond, he said.
"She doesn't care about who she could have hurt," he said.
