A man in Illinois was recently arrested for drunk driving after reportedly causing an injury accident. The alleged DUI accident took place on a Saturday along Illinois Route 14. Two people suffered injuries in the collision.
According to authorities, a 20-year-old man was driving a motorcycle west on the highway and tried to make a right turn onto an avenue. At that time, another man, 27, had just made a turn onto the highway from a different avenue. The second man’s motor vehicle suddenly hit the back of the first man’s motorcycle.
The motorcyclist ended up suffering serious injuries and was transported to the hospital by helicopter. Meanwhile, the second man suffered minor injuries, although he refused to receive medical treatment. He was then arrested for felony DUI, operating an automobile that was not insured and not reducing his speed to avoid a collision. Authorities continued to investigate the crash and said that additional charges were still possible.
The man who has been accused of DUI may opt to proceed to trial to fight his charges. Prosecutors in Illinois have to prove each element of the pending charges beyond a reasonable doubt — a burden that is often hard to meet — before any conviction can be secured. This standard exists in an effort to protect innocent people from being convicted of crimes they did not commit. The defendant may also seek to negotiate a plea deal with the prosecution if the weight of the prosecution’s evidence indicates that this may be a more personally favorable option. A plea deal may ultimately lead to a lighter charge and thus a more lenient sentence than what a defendant would face following a guilty verdict at trial.
Source: kfvs12.com, “Driver arrested for DUI after crash in Franklin Co., IL“, Jasmine Adams, Oct. 2, 2017