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Cassie Earley.
(Washington County Sheriff's Office)
FORT EDWARD, N.Y. -- A New York appeals court has overturned the aggravated driving while intoxicated conviction of a Vermont woman arrested after a fatal crash in upstate New York.
The Appellate Division's decision means Cassie Earley, 30, of Arlington, Vermont, won't have to serve a one-year jail sentence for the July 2012 crash in Hebron that killed 83-year-old Vincent Muro Sr. of West Rutland, Vermont, the Glens Falls Post Star reports.
Earley was convicted of driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.18 percent, more than double the state's legal limit for intoxication, when she drove a pickup truck into the oncoming lane on Route 22 in Hebron.
The Washington County jury that convicted Earley of DWI acquitted her of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
The Appellate Division found a technical error with the application made by a sheriff's investigator to get a court order to take a blood sample from Earley, saying he based his application partly on "hearsay" without disclosing that to the judge.
The investigator had been told by another officer that Earley admitted to drinking before the crash, the Post Star reported.
"The failure to reveal the hearsay nature of the information improperly deprived County Court of the opportunity to determine the reliability of the information for itself as a neutral, detached arbiter," Justice Robert Rose wrote.
The court let stand a reckless driving conviction against Earley, who was fined $300 and sentenced to time served for failure to keep right.
District Attorney Tony Jordan said his office will appeal to the state's highest court.