Jury acquits local man of DUI

Published 12:03 am Saturday, January 31, 2015

A jury found Troy Bryan not guilty of DUI Thursday.

Attorney Riley Powell, who represented Bryan, said the case began in March of 2012. Bryan was stopped at a roadblock on the Antioch Road, Powell said, adding that officers stopped eight cars and wrote five citations at the roadblock in a two-hour period.

Bryan and his brother-in-law had been pulling trout lines, Powell said.

“Testimony showed that the brother-in-law had purchased a six-pack of pony beers,” Powell said. “Each had had two of them over a period of four hours.”

A cooler in the vehicle held two beers, he said, which meant the six-pack was accounted for.

“He blew a .09, which meant he was over the legal limit,” Powell said. However, he said, his client was chewing tobacco, and also suffers from and is treated for acid reflux, both of which he believes distorted the Draeger breathalyzer results.

Powell said a witness for the state testified that he reviews every test administered in Alabama each week and that the results are infallible.

The jury disagreed and found Bryan not guilty. A forensic scientist testified that a grown man would need to consume five to six full-size beers in an hour to achieve the results that Bryan’s test showed.

Lee Enzor prosecuted the case for the state.