A month after his lawyer claimed he was not drunk during the deadly houseboat accident that killed a father and daughter at Temple Lake Park in June, Jason Bernal was indicted by a Bell County Grand Jury on two counts of intoxication manslaughter -- on top of his prior two counts of criminally negligent homicide.
Back in October, an Administrative License Revocation hearing determined Bernal -- who was operating the vessel -- could keep his driver's license. At the time, his attorney C. Barrett Thomas insisted Bernal was not legally drunk during the spring tragedy, nor had the Temple Police Department ever publicly said Bernal was intoxicated.
Under Texas law, a person could be found guilty of intoxication manslaughter if the individual were drunk, high or otherwise impaired from some form of drug or medication, and a jury were to determine that person had caused someone else's death through the operation of a car, aircraft or watercraft. Read the law here.
According to the original information provided by law enforcement, Kaitlyn Oliver, 4, was killed when the houseboat backed over her on Lake Belton. Her father, Patrick, lost both legs trying to save her and died later.
In an email Wednesday evening, Bernal's lawyer C. Barrett Thomas said Mr. Bernal's "blood alcohol concentration was NOT over the per se legal limit of .08." Below is Mr. Thomas' entire statement.
It is true that Mr. Bernal was indicted today from what I can tell from online records. I requested notice of that fact from the Bell District Attorney's Office, but for the second time they failed to notify me or my client of a change in Mr. Bernal's case. While the State is certainly not obligated to let the Defendant know, it is common in other jurisdictions to extend that courtesy -- especially when clients have voluntarily complied and even assisted with the investigation as Mr. Bernal has.I am certainly disappointed with the grand jury's decision in this case. Yet, as a judge once said, "a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich." All that is required for an indictment is for the grand jury to determine, based solely on the prosecutor's statement and possibly law enforcement's testimony, that an individual should face trial. They do not determine guilty or innocence. They merely determine probable case [sic], and they do so without the luxury of seeing all the evidence. Certainly, neither Mr. Bernal nor myself were invited to tell his side of the story before they made their decision.
That being said, Michael Morton, Christopher Scott, Anthony Graves, Juan Melendez, and countless others were all also indicted. In those cases, unfortunately, they were even convicted before it was discovered they did NOT commit the crimes the State alleged against them. I am confident Mr. Bernal's situation will be different because I am certain that 12 reasonable people from Bell County will be able to see that the State jumped the gun, failed to do an adequate investigation, and ultimately looked for a political scapegoat for a tragic accident. I look forward to presenting that case and seeing that justice is done.