Feb. 20--A lawyer for a man on trial on charges he drove over a good Samaritan who had tried to stop him from driving drunk attacked the testimony of bartenders and friends of the victim who said his client had been highly intoxicated.
Attorney Thomas Brandstrader had scoffed at the testimony of the prosecution witnesses who all claimed to witnessing people drunk on hundreds of occasions, prompting him to ask, "What are these young people doing?"
In closing arguments Friday, Brandstrader, who represents Timothy McShane, called their testimony "rehearsed."
The defense put on no evidence during the three-day trial into the death of Shane Stokowski , 33, who was just seven months away from his wedding at the time of the March 2014 incident.
Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood, who is presiding over the bench trial, said he will announce his verdict March 11.
McShane, whose license was suspended at the time after a history of drunken-driving arrests, is on trial at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on charges of aggravated DUI, reckless homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
In his closing remarks to the judge, Brandstrader said prosecutors had failed to prove that McShane even knew that there had been an accident, an essential element to the last of three charges.
"If (McShane) is looking straight ahead, he'd have no way to know what happened," said Brandstrader, who lamented how a single call to 911 might have prevented Stokowski's death.
But Assistant State's Attorney Martin Moore Jr. fired back, saying that by the time police responded to a 911 call someone could have been killed.
"Shane Stokowski did nothing wrong," Moore said. "He was a hero that day trying help (McShane). ... For his actions, he paid the ultimate price."
Moore also disputed any suggestion that McShane wasn't intoxicated, noting that bar surveillance video showed him drink three beers and a mixed drink in 70 minutes.
A bartender had testified he thought McShane had been drinking before he arrived and video showed McShane's friend lifting a glass of Captain Morgan's and Coke to his lips after McShane was apparently too drunk to find the straw himself, Moore said.
"There's no Breathalyzer invented that would tell you more than watching (McShane's) friend lift up the glass to his lips at 4 o'clock in the afternoon," he said.
Even though eight hours passed before McShane's blood was drawn at a hospital, he still tested at 0.225, nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08 percent, prosecutors have said.
Moore told the judge that it was impossible that McShane didn't know he had run over Stokowski, noting that Stokowski's hand left streaks in the road grime on driver's side door of the SUV just "six inches away from his face."
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
