The blood alcohol stage of hockey participant brothers Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau didn’t contribute to their deaths the day they had been fatally struck by an allegedly drunk and enraged driver, a choose dominated Tuesday.
This implies Sean Higgins, 44, will proceed to be tried for vehicular murder and manslaughter, prices his attorneys had been trying to eradicate or scale back.
The NFL participant and hockey coach brothers, age 31 and 29, had been killed final August as they bicycled alongside a rural New Jersey roadway, when Higgins, allegedly fueled by a cocktail of highway rage and beer, tried to move a Ford Bronco on the righthand aspect and slammed into the pair.
He admitted to officers on the scene that he had consumed a number of beers earlier than getting behind the wheel and whereas driving, upset after a contentious telephone dialog along with his mom. Higgins had a blood-alcohol stage of .087, above the state’s authorized restrict of .08, and failed a discipline sobriety check.
Indicted in December, Higgins pleaded not responsible in January to 2 counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, two counts of vehicular murder, one rely of leaving the scene of a lethal accident and one rely of tampering with proof. He faces as much as 70 years in jail if convicted.
Instagram / Katie Gaudreau
Katie Gaudreau along with her brothers, Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau, who had been fatally struck by a suspected drunk driver. (Instagram / Katie Gaudreau)
It later emerged the brothers too had been ingesting that night time, the night earlier than their sister’s marriage ceremony, and that their BAC had been even greater than Higgins’ — 0.129% for Johnny and 0.134% for Matthew.
On Tuesday, with the Gaudreaus’ tearful household trying on, attorneys debated for 2 hours in a New Jersey courtroom over whether or not that would have contributed to the accident. However a number of witnesses had informed police the brothers had been driving single file on the fringe of the highway, whereas Higgins was dashing.
Ultimately, Superior Court docket Decide Michael Silvanio concluded there was “no credence in the argument there was contributory negligence on the part of the cyclists.”
