With all the news about the Enron trial these days, it's easy to overlook other places where the wheels of justice are turning — for example, the trial of Mark Douglas Gilliland, a Houston plastic surgeon accused of seriously injuring two women on a Galleria-area sidewalk in a hit-and-run last year. Testimony in Gilliland's trial began today with prosecutors saying the doctor was "rip-roaring drunk" the night the accident occurred.
The story is that Gilliland had drinks during dinner at a restaurant on Westheimer the evening of March 9, 2005, then ran over two visiting Englishwomen when his Mercedes SL 500 went up on the sidewalk. Gilliland's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said the doctor heard a bump as he turned a corner onto the 3000 block of Sage Road, but he decided not to stop and see what had happened because he had been shot in the foot during a "bump and rob" attack 10 years earlier. As it turns out, the bump was the sound of the Mercedes hitting Joanna Samantha Moore and Amanda Holland, who were thrown into the air and seriously injured by the impact.
The women were in Houston on assignment as producers for Animal Cops: Houston. Moore had to be resuscitated after the accident and brain injury and fractures to her skull, ribs, legs and spine. Holland had a broken jaw and ankle and is facing reconstructive surgery. DeGuerin said Gilliland's car didn't go on the sidewalk, but rather the women looked the wrong way before they stepped into the street in front of the car. Ah, the age-old British defense.
On Tuesday, Judge Caprice Cosper ruled that a blood sample taken from Gilliland several hours after the accident was legally obtained by police. The blood test showed Gilliland had taken the sleeping aid Ambien, the diet pill Phentermine and the anti-depressant Celexa and that he had a blood-alcohol content above the legal limit of 0.08 percent. It's not clear whether the jury will ever get to hear those tets results, though: Gilliland's lawyers are arguing that the test was irrelevant because it the blood was taken more than four hours after the crash.
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