EAST AURORA, N.Y. — Tuesday morning, 30-year-old Erin Kuntz surrendered her driver's license in court.
East Aurora police said she hit a parked car on East Main Street, jumped a curb and struck a nine-year-old girl on her scooter.
At the initial arraignment, Kuntz's license was not taken away, which Erie County District Attorney John Flynn wasn't happy about.
On Monday he said, "I don't think I've made a call to a town court in my two-and-a-half years here, but I personally called the Aurora Town Court this [Monday] afternoon and spoke to the court clerk said that I want this thing scheduled immediately."
According to the complaint, police said Kuntz admitted that she did drink alcohol before driving. She failed all sobriety tests and refused to take a breath test.
"Whenever anyone refuses the breath test, automatically at arraignment, your license is immediately taken," said Flynn.
However, attorney Barry Covert wasn't surprised by the way Kuntz's arraignment was handled.
"The fact that there was a two-day delay is very normal as these cases go," he said.
Covert told 2 On Your Side that there are many reasons why a judge would hold off on suspending someone's license.
"What does often happen when you have an early-morning hour arraignment is that the judge begins it but then completes it or continues it on a separate day to make a determination as to when the paperwork, the blood test, all the information meets statutory criteria for suspending that person's license," he explained.
Nonetheless, a representative with the district attorney's office said at Tuesday's hearing the judge corrected his initial mistake.
"There should've been a prompt suspension of the person's license so we clarified that, reviewed the law with the judge and the defense attorney now the license is suspended now as it should've been initially," said Paul Glascott, the chief of the Vehicular Crimes Bureau for the Erie County District Attorney's Office.
Police said the girl who was hit suffered serious injuries including a collapsed lung, a broken collarbone, and a broken rib. She was taken to Oshei Children's Hospital.