By Kelsey Landon
Thursday morning the jury trial convened for a man facing charges of driving under the influence.
The defendant, John Wayne Bradley, is charged with driving under the influence after being found allegedly asleep in his vehicle on the side of Highway 16. Bradley was found in his car parked with the engine on in what appeared to be a private driveway.
The incident happened in March of 2017.
Deputy District Attorney Frits Van Der Hoek represented the People in Thursday’s proceedings.
The first witness for the case, a store manager from Esparto who was traveling toward Woodland on Highway 16 on the evening of the incident, was sworn in to testify.
The witness stated that she had seen the car pulled over at an angle to the road on her way to Woodland, and on her way back, about an hour or so later, she saw the same car still there.
The witness parked beside the vehicle, claiming she could see someone in the driver’s seat with his head down. When she could not get the driver to respond, the witness called 911.
The witness left before emergency responders arrived and never saw the face of the man in the driver’s seat.
The defense counsel, Deputy Public Defender Jonathan Opet, took his turn with the witness’s testimony.
In the defense’s questioning, the witness stated that she had been driving with her boyfriend when they observed the parked car.
The two of them were going to dinner in Woodland the night of the incident and both got out of their own car to look in the parked car’s windows. The witness claimed there was music playing loudly 
in the car.
The witness testified that her statements of time would be better in the initial statement she gave to the police, rather than what she could remember in trial.
Mr. Van Der Hoek then called the People’s next witness, Captain Kevin Jacob Brown, to the stand. Captain Brown has been a career firefighter for over ten years now.
The evening the incident occurred, Capt. Brown was on duty and was called to respond to an unknown medical emergency. Brown arrived on the scene at about 6:54 PM to find the driver slumped in the driver’s seat.
Brown testified that the car was on and in neutral. When Brown woke the man he appeared to be sluggish, but did not have any obvious medical issues.
According to Brown, the man’s speech implied that he was under the influence of some sort of substance.
Mr. Opet, for the defense, then took his turn asking the witness questions.
According to Brown, he had received no training at the firefighting academy on how to investigate a suspected DUI case.
Following protocol, Brown wrote an incident report of the scene about a week after the incident. Incident reports are meant to provide documentation that can be later used at jury trials.
Once arriving on the scene, Brown opened the door to the car to find the driver leaning toward the right side of the car. Brown then turned the car’s engine off.
Both of the man’s feet were on the floorboard of the car and the car did not move at all after Brown’s arrival. The car had a manual transmission.
Despite Brown’s testimony that the man was leaning to the right, the incident report claims the man was slumped over the wheel.
Mr. Brown was then dismissed.
The third witness brought in by the People to testify was CHP officer, Eduardo Garcia. Officer Garcia has been the PEBT and PAS coordinator for the Woodland CHP since 2004.
PAS stands for the preliminary alcohol screening test, a hand-held breath testing unit that provides blood alcohol concentration readings.
Garcia confirmed that these devices were compliant to Title 17 regulations, Title 17 being the rules and regulations required for administering DUI tests and for their readings to be admitted into court.
Garcia was then dismissed and the fourth witness, another Woodland CHP officer, was called to the stand.
The next witness was on duty the evening of the incident, driving a fully marked CHP vehicle when he received a call for service for a medical emergency.
When he arrived on the scene, the fire department was already there—including Captain Brown.
The CHP officer then talked to the defendant. At this point in his testimony, the witness was asked to identify the defendant, which he identified as Mr. Bradley.
Bradley was sitting on the rear of his car when the officer arrived. Bradley claimed he had been traveling home from work in San Jose, when he got sleepy and pulled over to take a nap.
The officer did not notice sign of a medical emergency, rather he observed symptoms of intoxication including red, watery eyes, slurring of speech and lethargic movements.
Bradley had told the officer he was from Sheridan and was traveling home. The People then exhibited a map of California to show the route from San Jose to Sheridan.
The People next displayed video and audio evidence taken from the CHP officer’s recording of the scene. In the video, the officer is heard saying to Bradley he is on probation for a DUI conviction until 2018.
The video was then paused and the jury was dismissed for lunch until the afternoon proceedings.
