Feb 8, 2008 By The 2 min read

The state Superior Court upheld a 48-hour-to-six-month prison sentence that a West Virginia man received after he was found guilty of drunken driving in Greene County. Greene County President Judge H. Terry Grimes sentenced Francis Gregory Swisher, 48, of Fairview in May after a jury found him guilty in April of driving under the influence and a summary traffic violation.

Swisher was ordered to serve the sentence in the county prison. State police in Waynesburg filed the charges after a trooper pulled Swisher over in July 2006 for crossing the white fog line and yellow lane-dividing line on a road and determined he had a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of .13 percent, according to court records, which is over the legal limit.

Trooper Kiprian Yarosh recorded Swisher driving by using a video camera mounted in his patrol car. The recording was used as evidence in the trial. In the ruling affirming the sentence, the court rejected defense attorney David Pollock’s argument that police did not have reasonable suspicion to pull Swisher over.

The court also ruled that “relation back” testimony from an expert witness, who would have contended that Swisher’s BAC would have been less than .13 percent while he was driving, was properly precluded from the trial. Greene County Assistant District Attorney Joseph Brodak prosecuted the case and handled the appeal.