A former Texas A&M student found guilty of intoxication manslaughter has changed his life since the 2007 accident that killed a 36-year-old woman, the man's girlfriend testified in the punishment phase of the trial.
It took a Brazos County jury just over an hour Wednesday to find Aaron Somers guilty in the death of Michelle Briggs, whose car was parked on the shoulder of Harvey Mitchell Parkway when the accident happened.
The punishment phase of the trial began Wednesday afternoon and will carry over into Thursday. Somers, 23, faces up to 20 years in prison for the second-degree felony conviction. He is eligible for probation because he never before had been convicted of a felony.
Somers' girlfriend of about 18 months, Whitney Broadwater, said he hadn't had a drink since the accident.
"He is 100 percent committed to his sobriety," she said. "Since the accident, he's changed, matured. He takes sobriety very, very seriously. ... He wants to be sober. He really, really does."
Lawrence Briggs testified about how the death of his older sister, whom he viewed as a role model, changed his life.
"It's affected me emotionally, physically, spiritually," said the Nicholls State University honors student, who plans to attend law school. "She won't be there for my graduation. I remember her telling me she'd help me get dressed. ... When I look out into the audience, I won't see her there. I won't have her there."
Both sides closed their cases Tuesday afternoon and delivered their closing arguments Wednesday morning.
The defense attorney asserted that the 23-year-old Somers might not have been the driver of the truck that smashed into the Prairie View A&M University graduate student's car at 60 mph and that Briggs might have been dead before the collision.
Prosecutors repeated the story of Briggs' death and said that Somers was the only person responsible.
"Her life was taken by Aaron Somers after a night of partying and drinking," said Assistant District Attorney Brian Baker. "He selfishly made the choice to get behind the wheel of a nearly 5,000-pound Toyota truck and drive it 60 mph and annihilated the back of the car with her in it."
Witnesses testified that Somers spent the night of Oct. 20, 2007, at a party hosted by Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity of which he was social chair.
William Duval testified that he saw Somers' truck swerving on Harvey Mitchell Parkway while driving home from a night out. Duval's vehicle turned off the road but made a quick U-turn after a loud collision was heard. He said he arrived on the scene 30 seconds later to find a man "dressed like an Indian" on all fours near the truck. The fraternity party was a costume party, and Somers was dressed only in a loincloth and had paint on his chest and face, pictures indicated.
Duval said he rushed to Briggs' car, where he found her lying across the front seat with no pulse. Authorities arrived and Briggs was taken to College Station Medical Center. She was kept alive for five days but was never resuscitated and died in the hospital.
College Station police Officer Benton Keough testified that Somers was visibly drunk and failed a roadside sobriety test. Keough obtained a warrant for a blood test that revealed that Somers has a blood alcohol content of .30 -- more than three times the legal limit.
Defense attorney Jim James argued that police assumed that Somers was the driver and killed Briggs and that their investigation had left several questions unanswered.
James asked whether jurors could be sure that Somers was the driver of the truck. Many people were dressed as Indians at the fraternity party, which was only a few hundred yards away, he said. Perhaps the truck driver ran back to the party while witnesses were focused on Briggs' condition, James suggested.
Also, prosecutors presented no evidence of trouble with Briggs' car, which left open the question of why she was pulled over on the side of the road, James said.
Witnesses described seeing her eyes rolled back seconds after the accident, but James pointed to a doctor's testimony that eyes usually don't do that until at least five minutes after oxygen has stopped flowing to the head. Perhaps, James suggested, Briggs suffered from a heart attack before the wreck.
First Assistant District Attorney Shane Phelps called such assertions preposterous. Medical records described Briggs' cause of death as blunt force trauma, Phelps said.
Somers also had marks on his chest from the driver's side seat belt that indicated he was the driver, Phelps said.
"It's a legal Hail Mary," he said of the defense. "It is a stab in the dark. It is speculation, upon speculation upon speculation. This is an easy call."
* Eagle staff writer Michelle Casady contributed to this story.
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