A judge decided Thursday that information from the car driven by a man who is suspected of being drunk when he hit and killed hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother can be used in court.
Attorneys for Pilesgrove resident Sean M. Higgins, 44, contended that state police had unlawfully accessed data from his Jeep’s onboard computer. In August 2024, the brothers were hit while riding a bicycle on a rural road in Oldmans Township.
As previously reported, Higgins was charged in December of last year with two counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, two counts of second-degree reckless vehicular homicide, second-degree abandoning the scene of a deadly accident, and fourth-degree tampering with physical evidence.
His attorneys moved to hide data retrieved from the Jeep in June, claiming that police had not obtained a communications data warrant and that investigators only had a warrant to view Higgins’ vehicle’s physical evidence.
The data from the airbag control module, which logs a variety of crash-related information such as vehicle speed, acceleration, and braking, was recovered by investigators.
According to police findings included with the defense brief, the airbag control module did not yield any data from the deadly collision.
The Jeep’s speed change was not significant enough to cause data recording, according to the police report. The prosecution pointed out that the crash did not cause the airbags to deploy.
According to a report, police found a chip in the car’s infotainment system that may have contained information about the vehicle’s speed, acceleration, and brakes.
Although a communications data order was obtained for that chip, the defense contended that investigators had already accessed data from the car when they extracted information from the airbag module without the proper request and therefore the warrant was obtained retroactively.
They therefore advised suppressing any data obtained from the car’s systems.
Michael Mestern, the assistant prosecutor, maintained that the warrants acquired throughout the inquiry were legitimate. He pointed out that information from the airbag control module is frequently utilized when reconstructing auto accidents.
Mestern described this as a clean search. There is no justification for overturning any of the presumptions that it carries.
Originally slated for Thursday, a separate defense move to exclude remarks Higgins made to police from trial will now be heard on September 18.
According to court filings from the prosecution, Higgins may receive a maximum sentence of 70 years in jail if convicted.He turned down a plea bargain that would have resulted in a guilty plea and 35 years in prison.
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