30 year old Dwayne Leggett of Baton Rouge has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. This comes after the tragic death of five members of a family of South Georgia after a DUI accident and collision on Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
This car crash occurred on October 2nd and initially, Leggett was charged with negligent homicide. These charges were upgraded this past Saturday because his blood-alcohol test results came back higher than expected and he was charged with the second-offense driving while intoxicated.
In this tragic DUI car accident, a pickup truck hit the back of another pickup that was stopped due to construction on over an overpass. Investigators said that the cab of the truck caught on fire after impact.
State police reported Alondra Brionca, 2 years old, died at the scene. The other family members, Maria Barrillos, 54 years old, Sonia Gomez Brionca, 27 years old, Jacqueline Gomez, 35 years old, and Rito Gomez, 22 years old, died within days after the accident.
Apparently, two days before this tragic accident Leggett was released from a pretrial diversion program which was began after Leggett’s first-offense DWI arrest on April 17th, 2009. This program allows the participant to not enter a guilty plea before a judge and have the arrest erased from the record but they must sign a form admitting guilt. Given the effects of this incident, it is apparent Leggett did not learn his lesson the first time around. Now an entire family has paid the ultimate price for Leggett’s reckless and selfish decision to drive while intoxicated.
Hopefully the authorities will take swift against Leggett to see that he never drives again and is further held accountable for his actions to this family and to society as a whole.
A partner with Childers, Schlueter & Smith, LLC,, Brandon Smith has devoted his practice to pharmaceutical litigation, mass torts, products liability and serious personal injury. A frequent guest speaker at legal seminars all over the country—Brandon is focused on helping injured victims nationwide, however possible. Named a SuperLawyer again in 2019, he has also been called out as one of 10 Best Attorneys For Georgia by the American Institute Of Personal Injury Attorneys and a Top 100 Lawyer in Georgia by the National Trial Lawyers in 2019.
Comments for this article are closed.