A three-judge Appeals Court panel in Virginia upheld the conviction of a Loudoun County man who argued that he was “sleep-driving” when he got into a car accident after taking prescription medication.
Joshua Kenneth Shortt was involved in a car accident on Oct. 7, 2008, according to court documents. He hit another car while driving on a highway in Loudoun County. When the other driver pulled over, Shortt hit the car again, according to the documents.
An officer with the Purcellville Police Department testified that Shortt was acting strangely, his pupils were dilated, and was unsteady on his feet at the accident scene. A few hours after the incident, tests found Ambien, a prescription sleep aid, and Benadryl, an over-the-counter allergy medicine, in Shortt’s system. He was convicted of driving under the influence of drugs.
Shortt argued that he voluntarily ingested the Ambien, for which he had a prescription, but argues that he was involuntarily intoxicated and “sleep-driving.”
“His argument emphasizes that [he] did not foresee that taking the prescribed dosage of Ambien would render him unconscious and cause him to be so intoxicated that he would ‘sleep-drive,'” Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. wrote.
Shortt’s mother, Leyla Dingess, testified that when she spoke to Shortt by telephone on the morning of Oct. 7, things were fine. When she spoke with him just after noon that same day, just before the accident, he told her he was getting ready to go to work but that “there were Mexicans in his house,” according to court documents.
Joe Ritenour, a Leesburg-based attorney representing Shortt in the case, said that he may take the case to the Virginia Supreme Court.
“It’s relatively novel,” Ritenour noted, saying that the issue principally came about when Ambien became so widespread. “Because of that, you don’t have 50 years of precedent.
“The facts are incredibly bizarre,” he added. “Luckily, no one was injured in the case.”
