NEW BRUNSWICK – A woman accused of fatally killing an 18-year-old South Brunswick woman in 2007 had a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 at the time of the crash, expert witnesses are testifying.
Kimberly Green was driving from a friend’s house in South Brunswick along Route 1 to her own residence in Somerset around 3 a.m. Dec. 28, 2007, when her vehicle collided with a Honda Civic occupied by driver Heather Pinheiro, 20, front-seat passenger Kylie Pinheiro, 18, and back-seat passenger Melissa Pinheiro, 21. Kylie was killed in the crash, and Heather and Melissa were seriously injured.
A police investigation determined that Green’s Mitsubishi Diamante was traveling at a high rate of speed before she hit a concrete barrier at the intersection of Route 1 north and Black Horse Lane as she ran a red light, striking the Pinheiros. However, a phone conversation to Green’s friend and a videotaped statement to police played during the trial last week in state Superior Court, New Brunswick, has Green, who was 32 at the time of the accident, alleging that Heather Pinheiro went through a light and struck her.
Testimony from medical experts has identified Green’s blood-alcohol level as 0.19 at the time of the crash just before 3 a.m., because a blood sample taken at 4:50 a.m. that morning tested as 0.159 mg/dL.
Dr. Edward J. Barbieri, who is a forensic toxicologist, assistant lab director and toxicology tech leader at NMS Labs, the facility that handled Green’s blood sample, testified on Sept. 15 that the concentration of ethyl alcohol found in Green’s blood were 159, 161 and 161 milligrams per deciliter, resulting in a reported number of 0.159 per a test called a headspace gas chromatograph. He testified that the samples were not tampered with and that quality controls were run to assure accuracy.
A separate enzymatic assay used as a screening tool calculated the concentration of ethyl alcohol in Green’s blood to be 189 mg/DL.
“It’s less accurate than a headspace analysis but it’s still considered accurate, within a ballpark,” Barbieri said. “This kind of verifies that we didn’t have a sample mix-up, and that we’re dealing with the same specimen.”
He said that the two numbers are considered to be accurate since there is a range of plus or minus 20 percent.
“It was revealed that ethyl alcohol was present in that sample,” Barbieri said.
However, Green’s attorney, Sandra Larson, argued that since the 0.189 number is not reported or recordable but is merely a comparative number, it has more variability.
Yet the testimony of Dr. Robert Pandina of the Center for Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University supported Barbieri’s testimony about Green’s blood-alcohol level, although his statements were all speculated upon a hypothetical. Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Nicholas Sewitch asked Pandina to hypothetically calculate the blood alcohol level of a 114-pound woman who had a 0.159 blood-alcohol level when tested at 4:50 a.m. after a 2:58 a.m. motor vehicle accident if the last drink was at 2:13 a.m.
Pandina said the level at the time of the crash would be 0.19 plus or minus .01, with 95 percent confidence.
Pandina said that someone with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08, which is the legal limit, will experience “perceptual motor coordination that is deteriorated; that is, we see decreased reaction time,” a disillusioned evaluation of speed and difficulty handling divided attention tasks. He said that someone with a level of 0.08 is four to eight times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than a sober driver.
He then said that a level of 0.159 causes “some profound debilitation,” double vision, impaired judgment, slowed reaction time, depressed reflexes and an increased ability to take risks.
“It’s more than twice of a disability when you are around 0.08,” Pandina said, noting that someone with a level of .159 is 70 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash.
At a level of 0.19, Pandina said, “psychomotor coordination is significantly impaired,” with a 100 times greater risk of being involved in a fatal crash than a sober driver.
“It reflects the increased disability one has as the alcohol level rises,” he said.
Based on the hypothetical, Pandina said a person would have had to consume approximately 9 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits, about six to seven 12-ounce beers, or 26 to 28 ounces of table wine with a 12 percent alcohol content to test for a 0.19 blood alcohol level based on the given circumstances.
Green had told police in a taped video statement that she had only two drinks, which were fruity martinis, in about a three-hour span prior to the crash.
Pandina said that in a hypothetical situation, 4 ounces of alcohol from two drinks would result in a maximum blood-alcohol level of 0.12, answering Sewitch’s question whether two drinks could cause a blood-alcohol level of 0.159.
Pandina said it was “not possible” to achieve that high of a number “unless the person had some odd medical condition that would not allow them to metabolize alcohol.”
Another hypothetical question was referred to by Sewitch, based on investigators detecting an odor of alcohol on Green during their interview around 9:30 a.m. Dec. 28.
“All it tells you is that the person has been drinking the night before. … It means the alcohol is still circulating … and is being emanated from the lungs. It means alcohol is still present,” Pandina said.
When the jury was dismissed from the courtroom, defense counsel Larson asserted that the proceedings were a mistrial because the hypotheticals were so clearly based upon the allegations lodged against Green.
However, Judge Michael Toto dismissed the notion, saying he “[doesn’t] think it prejudiced the jury.”
Larson also questioned once again the integrity of the investigation. Sgt. John Dando of the prosecutor’s office can be heard on videotape telling other investigators that if a policeman responding to the scene of the accident did not detect any alcohol, they should not address the issue, since there was a discrepancy among officers as to whether or not an odor was detected. Larson also asked Dando why he was not aware that part of the accident investigation report completed by George Logan III of George Logan’s Towing was missing from the case file. Further, she questioned Dando as to why action was not taken to preserve the blood samples of Green at NMS Labs, but instead the lab was allowed to discard the samples without notifying Green’s counsel prior.
The trial is expected to continue through at least Friday.
Contact Jennifer Amato at [email protected].