Questions loom since the confession came as the teenage girl lay side by side in the ambulance with the woman who had just hurt her. The woman admitted to the medical technician and the paramedic that she was fresh out of rehab and had been drinking - a lot. The girl heard her say, she couldn't recall the still-smoking accident in which she lost control of her Cadillac Escalade and smashed head-on into two cars, including the teenager's.

There are indications to date that the March 25 collision was caused by California drunk driving - and that police who investigated the incident should have been suspicious. Those police officers took no steps to question driver Sandra Woodall, a former San Jose California cop, about possible California intoxication and did not conduct a California DUI field sobriety or California drunk driving blood test.

California DUI attorneys with long experience in DUI cases agree there should have been questions from the beginning about whether the California crash had been fueled by booze. They suggested that the California police officers' conduct showed those officers didn't want to know the truth .

No California DUI blood alcohol test

Powerful evidence: After the ambulance reached the hospital, an officer reportedly told the mother of the teenager that it was too late for an accurate blood alcohol test on Woodall. Such a statement, California DUI attorneys say, would have been patently false.

But Harry Stern, a prominent East Bay lawyer who often represents police officers, said he saw no evidence of a coverup. "There is absolutely no proof that this was anything other than officers responding to someone that they knew and trying to be courteous," said Stern, a former Berkeley police officer.

After questions arose about the initial accident investigation, the California Attorney General's Office was brought in by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office to review the case because Woodall now works as a district attorney's investigator, creating a conflict of interest. The attorney general's office eventually charged Woodall with felony California drunk driving. She has pleaded not guilty. The San Jose Police Department has placed on leave two officers - supervising Sgt. Will Manion and officer Patrick D'Arrigo - and is investigating their actions as a possible crime.

Protecting their own?

A month after the Woodall incident first became public, many are looking upon it as a dark example of how law enforcement officers protect their own. But the San Jose mother of the injured teenager said it took nearly a month after the crash for her to suspect potentially nefarious reasons behind the odd behavior she witnessed that night.

"I think officers made a stupid mistake that night," said the woman, who requested anonymity. "They all worked to cover it up."

At the hospital the night of the crash, an officer - later identified as D'Arrigo - asked for insurance information as their daughter was being given a CAT scan, the woman said.

So what happened, the mother recalled asking him.

D'Arrigo told her two theories, both of which he said he got from witnesses: The driver of the Escalade miscalculated a turn - or someone may have cut her off.

The mother said to the officer: You know she was drinking, don't you?

D'Arrigo looked surprised, the woman said. No, he told her.

He said he would interview her daughter about it.

Can't you check her blood?

The officer explained that it was too late. A blood test this long after the crash wouldn't be accurate.

The woman estimated to the Mercury News that the exchange took place about an hour and 45 minutes after the California collision.

California DUI lawyers, who make their livings trying to rebut evidence against clients who are charged with California drunk driving, said that two hours, even three, are well within the legal norm for testing a suspected California drunk driver's blood.

California DUI attorneys suggest there were a myriad of indications that California police did not handle the Woodall investigation objectively.

For example:

Common crash cause

• A serious accident with injuries is virtually always considered as a potential California DUI case, because intoxication is such a common cause of accidents. A driver can be successfully prosecuted even with a low confirmed blood alcohol level. Yet the investigating officers apparently took no steps to explore that possibility.

• Given that medical workers said they smelled alcohol on Woodall's breath and saw clear signs of intoxication, it is difficult to believe the California police did not. An odor of alcohol is one of the clearest signs of intoxication and a trained officer would rarely miss it. Even if the officers didn't smell booze, why wouldn't they have suspected Woodall might have been driving under the influence of drugs - such as cocaine or the sleep aid Ambien - and had blood taken to confirm or discount it?

• Woodall was not given a California DUI field sobriety test or a PAS test (a Breathalyzer test), even though these tests are given at virtually every suspicious accident with injuries, California lawyers believe.


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