DRIVING ON DRUGS LAW TO BE ARGUED

Hearing Granted Woman Charged In Freeway Deaths

The validity of a state law that prohibits people from driving with certain
amounts of specific drugs in their system will be the subject of an October
hearing in the criminal case arising from the deaths of six teen-agers
killed while picking up trash in the median of Interstate 15.

Defense attorney John Watkins, who represents Jessica Williams, contends
that the law is unconstitutional, while prosecutors say legislators were
well within their authority when they set the limits in 1999.

In scheduling the Oct. 13 hearing, District Judge Mark Gibbons on Monday
gave no indication of his leanings on the issue. He said he simply wanted
additional information before making his ruling.

"I need to get some more facts," Gibbons said.

At the hearing, the prosecution and the defense each will present one
expert capable of testifying about the scientific conclusions underlying
the law.

Watkins said the law is unconstitutional because it seeks to punish, in the
name of traffic safety, people who do not pose a threat on the roads.

In a court document, he said the presence of low levels of marijuana in a
person's system "is meaningless in terms of determining driving impairment."

Deputy District Attorney Bruce Nelson wrote in a court document that
legislators adopted the law in response to a fatal accident in which
prosecutors could not demonstrate that a "drugged driver" in a fatal
accident was "under the influence."

Several other states, including Georgia and Arizona, have passed stricter
laws, the prosecutor said.

"Those states have upheld a flat ban on driving with any detectable amount
of a prohibited substance because of the difficulty of determining exactly
when a person becomes impaired," Nelson wrote.

Because some drugs, such as marijuana, can be passively ingested, Nevada
legislators opted to set specific limits for each of the prohibited
substances, the prosecutor said.

Williams, 21, remains in the Clark County Detention Center on $5 million
bail. She is charged in a March 19 accident in which her minivan entered
the median of I-15 near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, running into six
teens on a county work crew.

Dead at the scene were Anthony Smith, 14, Scott Garner Jr., 14, Alberto
Puig, 16, Maleyna Stoltzfus, 15, and Rebeccah Glicken, 15. Jennifer Booth,
16, died the next day at University Medical Center.

The defense contends that Williams was not impaired by the marijuana and
Ecstasy found in her system. Rather, Watkins said she simply fell asleep
and veered off the road.

Prosecutors contend that she was impaired, and that she actually passed out
from her use of the drugs.

Watkins had filed court documents that urged Gibbons to dismiss the charges
on various grounds. The parties argued these issues in court Monday, with
much of the contentiousness that has come to mark proceedings in the case.

After Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker used a poster-sized board
on which he had summarized applicable law, Watkins asked if he might use
the exhibit. The prosecutor initially said no.

"That's it, hide it, hide it like everything else," Watkins said.

"You can use it," Booker said with a laugh.

The judge declined to dismiss the charges, though he agreed with Watkins
that a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia should be
adjudicated in Justice Court.