Former FWPD Officer On Trial For Intoxication Manslaughter

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Testimony resumed Wednesday in the Jesus Cisneros trial. The former Fort Worth police officer is accused of killing wife and mother Sonia Baker while driving drunk last December. Cisneros faces intoxication manslaughter charges.

A toxicologist testified Wednesday that Cisneros had more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system when he crashed into Baker's car at the intersection of Columbus Trail and Evening Star in southwest Fort Worth.

Cisneros, who was off-duty at the time and driving home from a sports bar, was in an unmarked police vehicle, a Toyota Highlander, when he crashed into Baker's Chrysler PT Cruiser while traveling at more than 70 miles an hour.

During testimony the state called a retired police officer, who is now an accident reconstruction expert, to the stand. Tim Lovett, with Crash Dynamics, testified that the crash never would have happened if Cisneros hadn't been drinking or speeding.

"I cannot imagine the decision process was not inhibited by alcohol induction into the system," he said in court. "If we slowed the Toyota Highlander down to 35 miles an hour, there would be no contact between these two vehicles."

When it was first discovered that a law enforcement official had hit Baker her mother, Stella Lopez, said, "A Fort Worth police officer? That's what outrages me," Lopez told CBS 11. "I can understand an accident, but not a drunken Fort Worth police officer. I just can't understand that. I hope he rots in hell. I really do. I'm a Christian woman, but I don't know if I could even forgive him. It's going to take a lot for me to forgive somebody who took my daughter this way."

Cisneros has since resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department.

If the jury finds the former officer guilty, Cisneros could face up to 20 years in prison.