Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Beer-battered fish explanation didn't save man from his 10th drunken driving conviction

A jury in Adams County, Wisconsin, found a 76-year-old Friendship man, who said during a traffic stop that he smelled of alcohol because he had just eaten beer-battered fish, guilty on Monday of his 10th offence of drunken driving. John H. Przybyla faces a maximum of 12½ years in prison.

Portage County Circuit Judge Alan White, acting as a substitute judge in the Adams County case, ordered a pre-sentencing investigation. No date for sentencing has been scheduled. According to court documents, at 2:27pm on Oct. 12, 2014, an Adams County deputy saw a vehicle make a U-turn on Highway 13 in Dell Prairie.



The deputy followed the vehicle and saw that it had a broken tail lamp. The deputy checked the licence plate and learned Przybyla owned the vehicle, and he had a revoked driver's licence. As Przybyla went around a curve in the highway, the deputy saw Przybyla's vehicle go over the centre line. The deputy stopped the vehicle. The deputy noticed an odour of alcohol on Przybyla's breath and asked him how much he had been drinking.

Przybyla said he hadn't but had been at a fish fry on State 82 and had eaten beer-battered fish. The deputy arrested Przybyla and took him to Moundview Memorial Hospital in Adams. Przybyla refused to take a blood test, stating it was against his religion. The deputy got a warrant to conduct the test. A preliminary breath test showed Przybyla had a 0.062 blood-alcohol concentration. For Wisconsin residents with three or more drunken driving convictions, the legal limit is 0.02 percent.

2 comments:

Shak said...

I thought this was quite interesting. I had never heard of a "tail lamp" before. I checked the original story to see if it said that or if it was changed because of a different name here in the UK. It wasn't! We have always called them tail lights. Hmm...Wisconsin.

xoxoxoBruce said...

Tail lamp is a holdover from the days when the rear lights were a freestanding, self contained, bolt-on. When they became incorporated into the body(or bumper), they truly became tail lights. The two terms are used interchangeably with no confusion.