Defense attorney tells Eichhorst jury: 'Today's case is a family tragedy'

Ali Eichhorst (Photo courtesy of the Greene County Sheriff's Department) [Click to enlarge]

On the first day of testimony, defense attorney Sam Shapiro of Bloomington, said 18-year-old Ali Eichhorst had been drinking, but disputed that she was drunk more than three years ago when she and her sister were involved in a traffic accident west of Linton.

Killed in the wreck was Tara Eichhorst, Ali Eichhorst's 15-year-old younger sister.

Ali Eichhorst, who is now 21, is on trial in Greene Superior Court -- charged with two felony counts related to the wreck and her sister's death.

Attorney Shapiro characterized the jury trial of the young Dugger woman accused in the drunk driving death of her younger sister as a 'family tragedy' during his opening statement Wednesday morning.

The seven female and five male jury listened as Shapiro gave them a preview of the defense he will put up for his client, Ali Eichhorst, of Dugger.

This case was first filed more than three years ago following the wreck on Atlas Road (County Road 1375W) near Linton on April 15, 2006 that killed Ali Eichhorst's 15-year-old sister, Tara Renee Eichhorst.

Tara Eichhorst was a sophomore student at Union High School in Dugger.

Ali Eichhorst, who sat next to her attorney with her head down and cried during much of the testimony, was a little more than a month away from her commencement program at Union High School in Dugger when the 4:30 a.m. crash happened.

Ali Eichhorst is charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated causing a death; and operating a vehicle while intoxicated with an alcohol concentration equivalent to at least .08 gram of alcohol in blood or breath resulting in death -- both class C felonies.

"Today's case is a family tragedy," Shapiro said in his opening statement on the first day of the actual during trial.

Jury selection took place on Tuesday.

The defense attorney said his client during her high school days was a typical student.

The daughter of Greg Eichhorst -- an engineer and Renee Eichhorst, a hairdresser, she was cheerleader, softball and basketball player at Union High School. She worked at Burger King and was a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at the time of the pre-dawn crash on the day before Easter Sunday in 2006.

In the hours before the tragic wreck, Ali and her younger sister had decided to 'go cruising and visit with some friends' about 9 p.m. on April 15, 2006, he said.

Shapiro said the sisters "cruised" for four or five hours and acknowledged that Ali had consumed "three beers" during the course of the evening and early morning hours before the crash. He also revealed that Tara had also been drinking, but he didn't know how much.

Shapiro called the county road -- near the intersection with Hoosier Road as a "not very safe road" and said, "Ali Eichhorst was not a substantial cause of this accident."

He continued, "She was not proven to be intoxicated beyond a reasonable doubt.

Shapiro stressed:

*There were no open alcohol containers found at the scene of the crash.

*There were no reports of 'smelling' alcohol from any of the first responders at the wreck scene.

"This was not your typical drunk driving accident," Shiparo said.

The defense attorney also pointed out that the blood/alcohol test conducted at Greene County General Hospital resulted in the criminal charges filed against his client and he said, "The validity of the (blood) testing at the hospital will come into question."

Greene County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Stone had a different view of the case in her opening statement.

She recounted the early morning scene of screeching tires awaking neighbors in the Altas Road area as the 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier black-colored convertible veered out of control into a ditch and overturned in a yard.

Ali Eichhorst, the driver, was partially ejected and trapped in the vehicle as was her sister.

Members of the Linton Fire Department extricated both girls from the vehicle.

Ali was taken to Greene County General for treatment of a head and ankle injury as well as multiple cuts and bruises.

The deputy prosecutor pointed out Tara Eichhorst was taken to the morgue after dying at the crash site.

"Losing a sibling is a very devastating thing," Stone acknowledged, but she stressed to the jurors, "I'm going to ask you to hold the defendant accountable for the decision she made to get behind the wheel."

Stone said the testimony of 14 prosecution witness will prove that Ali Eichhorst was intoxicated over the legal state limit and by driving caused the death of her younger sister.

"The evidence in this case will come in piece by piece," Stone said in telling jury that she will call as witnesses -- police, fire/rescue, hospital, a toxicologist and a deputy coroner.

Linton Police Department officer Jayson Smith, the first law enforcement person on the scene of the wreck, said the road conditions at the time of the crash were dry and he called the road "flat and level".

Smith and Linton Fire Department member Opie Wall both testified there was nothing obvious at the scene that would indicate that alcohol was involved in the tragic wreck.

Veteran Greene County General Hospital emergency room physician Dr. B.H. McDougal testified that Ali Eichhorst was 'uncooperative, yelling, was loud and boisterous' when she arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes after the crash.

"She kept yelling for her sister over and over again," McDougal said.

He also testified that "she had a very strong smell of ethanol (alcohol) on her breath" during his examination.

"She smelled strongly of alcohol," he told the court.

ER nurse Diane Brown concurred with McDougal's observation of Ali Eichhorst.

Brown said Ali's speech was 'slightly slurred' and she noticed a smell of alcohol that was "fairly strong".

Brown and McDougal both testified that a blood draw was done about 5:10 a.m. -- that included testing for a blood/alcohol level.

According to the probable cause affidavit filed with the court by the investigating officer, Greene County Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Inman, a blood sample drawn at the hospital showed an alcohol concentration level of .27 percent -- more than three times over the legal limit of .08 percent for intoxication in the state of Indiana.

Brown also testified that Ali Eichhorst had the 'dry heaves' then vomited a few minutes after the blood draw.

"It smelled of alcohol," Brown said. "She obviously had been drinking."

This case has had several delays -- related to the blood draw done at the hospital.

The case was set to go to trial in 2007, but in early April 2007, former Greene Superior Court Judge J. David Holt granted a motion to suppress evidence of the blood draw and the following test results done at Greene County General Hospital.

The motion was filed by Eichhorst's attorney, on Dec. 12, 2006.

At an evidence suppression hearing conducted Jan. 12, 2007, Shapiro presented the court with a 31-page motion and four additional exhibits that requested that the blood/alcohol evidence not be admitted in court because he alleges it was "obtained in violation of her (Ali Eichhorst's) constitutional rights to privacy, due process and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure."

Consequently, her April 24, 2007 jury trial was postponed was postponed after the trial court motion was granted.

However, Greene County Prosecutor Jarrod Holtsclaw appealed that motion and in February 2008, the Indiana Court of Appeals handed down a decision reversing the motion granted in Greene Superior Court to suppress hospital blood test results as evidence in the case.

In a 20-page opinion from the Court of Appeals, the court concluded that the subpoena duces tecum for Ali Eichhorst's hospital records was reasonable and that the trial court abused its discretion by granting Shapiro's motion to suppress the hospital's blood test results.

Holtsclaw re-filed charges in Sept. 2008.

The trial will continue Thursday morning starting at 8:30 p.m.