By posting a confession on his blog, a Florida teen effectively pleaded guilty to causing a deathly accident, a Florida judge has ruled.

Blake Ranking wrote the confession shortly after a car accident on 3 October last year, as three friends were driving home after a party. The driver was sober but tests showed that  Raking had a blood alcohol level of 0.185. Sitting in the back seat, he reached for the steering wheel:

"It was me who caused it. I turned the wheel. I turned the wheel that sent us off the road, into the concrete drain . . .," the Sun Sentitel reported. Meanwhile Ranking's friend, Jason Coker, 17, lay in a coma at Orlando Regional Medical Center. "How can I be fine when everyone else is so messed up?"

Coker died. Ranking later deleted the posting, but that was after prosecutors had seen it, marking the first time in the Florida area that a blog had been used as evidence.

Photo credit: Joana Franca

Tags: blog, drunk driving

20 Dec 2005