Nearly three years after a semitractor-trailer slammed into stopped traffic on Interstate 75, killing six people and injuring others, a Kentucky trucker is scheduled to stand trial Monday in Chattanooga for allegedly causing the carnage under the influence of methamphetamine.
Impairment, contradictory blood tests and a decades-old evaluation that authorities use to predict which drugs someone ingested will be centerpieces of debate when Benjamin Brewer, 42, says “not guilty” during his scheduled trial in Hamilton County Criminal Court.
There is plenty of information out-of-town jurors from Nashville will not hear because of regular pretrial negotiations, and attorneys have debated essential issues until the last minute.
As recently as two weeks ago, Brewer’s defenders questioned whether it was necessary for jurors to hear about him falsifying his log books, which truck drivers are required to maintain to track their hours. Nor do they want any mention of a $166 citation Brewer received in Florida for sideswiping a vehicle just days before he crashed in Tennessee.
“The fact there are false log books doesn’t have any relevance to what caused the accident,” public defender Jay Underwood argued. “They don’t show whether he was intoxicated or not, they don’t show anything about what caused the accident. They would just [give] the jury the impression that Mr. Brewer’s a dishonest person.”