Christmas Eve ’07 crash trial, verdict: guilty

This has been a long and arduous journey legal journey.  The human and societal costs are staggering.

For starters, one victim, a motorist, dead. A number of injured motorists. The suspect, locked up since the crash on December 24, 2007.

Christopher Lee Smith, 32 years old, stands accused of DUI and manslaughter in a wrong-way, head-on collision on Pecos Road near 14th Street in Phoenix, AZ.

According to the Ahwatukee Foothills news story; “At the time of the crash, Smith was on probation for a previous misdemeanor DUI…”

Superior Court case number CR2008-102616 or search on supremecourt.az.gov

The “Sleep Driving” defense?

The so-called “sleep driving” defense may be employed, see e.g. this minute entry “Defense expert witness re sleep driving is discussed”

Trial delayed again due to a death in one of the victim’s family. The AFN is reporting (Oct 30, 2009? but i can’t find online) that the defendant has rejected a plea deal (no details given) and trial is scheduled for February 2010. The defendant remains incarcerated.

The Trial and Guilty Verdict

Trial coverage. Verdict, guilty. 2nd Degree Murder, and 3x aggravated assault.

Sleep driving. Sleep driving? SLEEP DRIVING!? What will the defense lawyers think of next? Does this ever really work? “…But defense attorney Charles Shell told the same jury that the tragedy was not his client’s fault because Smith was driving in his sleep and was unaware of what he was doing”, “An expert witness hired by the defense, Dr. Dave Gaither of Illinois, testified that if Smith had gone to sleep first, then he was probably sleep driving and unaware of what he was doing.” Hmm, what kind of doctor? apparently not a physician.

Sentencing

Wrong-way Christmas Eve driver sentenced to 23.5 years in prison. The print edition, which strangely varied from the online version, and was much longer.

“he asked for the minimum 16 years, base upon the fact that Smith was on probation at the time for endangerment stemming from a Tempe incident where he reused to pull over of a police officer, then drove toward the officer requiring him to jump out of the way and later attempted to flee on foot…” “smith also had an extensive juvenile court record and a previous DUI”. “In sentencing Smith, Myers gave him 16 years for the second-degree murder of Vo, and 7.5 years for each of the three aggravated assaults…Myers ordered that the murder time be served first and that the three aggravated  assault terms could run concurrently. Smith plans to appeal the jury’s verdict”. [court minute entry on sentencing]

Another hit-and-run; this time Mesa

A cyclist was seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver in Mesa in the early-evening timeframe. Monday Aug 24, 2009.  Police arrested Benito Gil-Mendoza, 31,  on suspicion of aggravated assault and hit-and-run.

The azcentral story says the collision was 6:30p. Sunset that day in Phoenix is 7:03p. No mention of lights was made in either of the news stories.

How will this one play out? After all, three hours is a long time. The suspect will likely deny he was drunk at the time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Drunken driver Sentenced in Cop’s Death

Salvador Vivas-Diaz was sentenced to the maximum of 16 years in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter after driving drunk and hitting Phoenix PD Officer Shane Figueroa head-on. The officer was responding to a call at the time.

Traffic collisions, not, say, guns, are the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths of police officers. See: More Police Killed by Traffic than Guns.

“Alcohol-Related” vs. “Alcohol-Impaired”

In last week’s Numbers Guy WSJ column, Carl Bialik examines a dust-up between MADD and the (beverage industry-backed) Century Council. They published a bar-chart of alcohol-related fatalities broken down by BAC levels.

Note that the term alcohol-related means simply that any of the drivers involved had a BAC of 0.01 or greater.

What intests me, however, is how the chart looks if we include all fatalities and how the same chart would look. Read the rest of this entry »

Was that an accident, or a crash?

The term “accident” should never be used in connection with a vehicle collision.

Here is the reasoning. The terminology switch at NHTSA occurred years ago…

Here’s a pretty good summation: AUTOMOBILE CRASHES ARE NOT ACCIDENTS Vehicle accidents have been occurring since the first rider fell off his horse, two chariots collided in the Rome streets, or the first motorized vehicles collided in an American street. It was not until August 11, 1997 that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided that “Crashes are not Accidents.” Motor vehicle crashes and injuries are predictable and preventable events. “Since we can identify the causes of crashes, we can take action to alter the effect, and avoid collisions. These events are not “acts of God” but predictable results of the laws of physics. The use of the term “Accident” promotes the concept that these events (that is, accidents) are outside of human influence or control. Since “Crashes Aren’t Accidents,” the NHTSA Traffic Safety Program Campaign of 1997 was initiated with the removal of “Accident” from the NHTSA vocabulary and any media or public NHTSA discussion of unintentional highway injuries. Instead of “accident” the use of terms such as “crash,” “collision,” “incident,” and “injury” was encouraged, since “Crashes Aren’t Accidents.” There is an article “‘Crashes Aren’t Accidents’” Campaign”by Pamela Anikeeff, NHTSA Now, V. 3, No. 11, August 11, 1997 pages 1-2 (pasted, below). What does it mean that crashes are not accidents? The answer to the questions: Why is an automobile crash is not an accident? and Why are vehicle Accidents not accidents? did not come until 2003…

Please note that the term MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident) will not be used in this document. An accident is defined as an unpredictable and unpreventable event. The researched causes of Motor Vehicle “Accidents” are 85% driver error, 10 % road or environmental factors and 5% vehicle failure; therefore they do not fit the criteria to be deemed accidental. Injuries caused by Motor Vehicle Collisions, while unintentional, are still preventable through the addressing of the factors contributing to these injuries.

A Plea for Prevention
Poole, Galen V. MD, FACS
Chairman, Violence Prevention Task Force; Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma.

I (finally! I found it in archive.org) dug up the NHSTA Now! Volume 3, Number 11 from August 1997

“Crashes Aren’t Accidents” Campaign

by Pamela Anikeeff, Traffic Safety Programs Read the rest of this entry »

92-year-old jailed for DUI

I don’t normally like to comment on these far-afield stories but this one is particularly crazy.

It seems that 92-year-old Clifford Allen was convicted of his second DUI (second within six years,  one wonders if there are more?) this triggers some sort of mandatory sentence and landed him in the county lockup, when some sort of residential rehab fell through. Read the rest of this entry »

Rumsey guilty of manslaughter

Glenda Rumsey was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Tucson teenager Jose Rincon. This is fairly unusual, as juries rarely go for the higher degree murder charge, and instead usually opt for the less-serious Negligent Homicide (see here for a roundup of types of murder). Like many drunk drivers, she also tried to run. Read the rest of this entry »

DUI bill passes with help from speaker

UPDATE June 7, 2008:  HB2643 passed and signed. Score one for Napalitano. So the interlock stays at a year.

DUI Escalation

There are a couple of slants in this story by Sarah Fensky appearing in the Phoenix New Times: “It took less than one drink to get Shannon Wilcutt busted for felony DUI“

Senate bills propose stiffer DUI penalties

If it’s legislative season, it must be time to fiddle with the DUI laws. Again. Read the rest of this entry »