Evidence found inside the truck Benjamin Brewer was driving in the 2015 Interstate 75 crash that killed six will not be admissible in his trial.
Criminal Court Judge Don Poole granted on Friday a defense motion to suppress the evidence, said Mike Little, deputy public defender. Little said the judge made the ruling because the affidavit for the search warrant did not establish probable cause pursuant to the law.
Poole is still allowing one blood sample into evidence, Little added.
Jury selection for Brewer's trial will begin June 12, and the jurors will be from Davidson County. Brewer's trial is set to begin July 19. He is being held in the Hamilton County Jail and faces six counts of vehicular homicide and four counts of reckless aggravated assault.
The 2015 nine-vehicle crash killed six people, two of whom were children, after Brewer's truck crashed into slow traffic near I-75's exit 11 in Ooltewah, Tenn., just after 7 p.m. on June 25, according to prosecutors.
The National Transportation Safety Board stated driver fatigue and drug use were the cause of the crash, as Brewer had been driving for 15 hours before he reached Chattanooga without any significant rest in about 40 hours, according to investigators. In addition, a drug test revealed he had been using methamphetamine at the time of the crash, according to previous reports by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Contact staff writer Rosana Hughes at 423-757-6327 or rhughes@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @hughesrosana.