The suburban Chicago Southtown Star reported that Eddie Lumpkin, accused of driving under the influence of drugs when he fatally struck a 6-year-old girl with his full-sized van, has pleaded not guilty. Mr. Lumpkin is being held on $500,000 bail and is scheduled for a hearing later this month. He can expect that his Chicago DUI lawyer will have a hard time plea bargaining with the judge because typically, there are harsh sentences for DUI related deaths.
Back in February, as covered by The Chicago DUI Blog, Mr. Lumpkin struck and killed first-grader Jada Washington. His van also struck and injured the girl's aunt; both were walking across the street when they were hit. The driver was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of cocaine and marijuana, among other charges.
The Southtown Star article noted that two 40-ounce bottles of beer, one of which was opened, also were found in the van at the time of the accident. Mr. Lumpkin's Illinois DUI attorney, public defender Steve Greenberg, insisted that evidence will prove his client was sober and not using cocaine prior to the incident.
He reportedly failed a field sobriety test, tested positive for cocaine, and admitted to having smoked marijuana prior to the incident.
Mr. Lumpkin's alibi, according to Mr. Greenberg, is that he had taken Tylenol for a work-related injury. Although Tylenol 3 (which contains the opiate codeine) would show the presence of opiates in a drug screen, a list of substances at AskDocWeb.com causing false-positives does not indicate that regular Tylenol can show up in a specimen sample as cocaine.
Mr. Lumpkin as been stopped more than 20 times and ticketed about 40 times between 1987 and 2010 for a variety of moving violations, according to court records cited by reporters.
Related Resources:
- DUI - Trial (FindLaw)
- Andrew Gallo Pleads Not Guilty, Wants Trial Elsewhere in Nick Adenhart DUI Murder Case (FindLaw's Tarnished Twenty Blog)
- Contact a Chicago DUI Lawyer (FindLaw)
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