Fate Of Seahawk In Hands Of Jurors

A series of lies Lamar Smith told after he crashed his car in an accident that partially paralyzed teammate Mike Frier showed the Seattle Seahawks running back was intoxicated and had a guilty conscience, a prosecutor said Thursday.

“His motive to lie, his demonstrated ability to lie … is patently obvious,” deputy prosecutor Brenda Bannon said in closing arguments at Smith’s vehicular assault trial in King County Superior Court.

“Wilbur Lamar Smith stated the core truth of this case when he repeatedly stated (at the accident scene), ‘It’s my fault, it’s all my fault,”’ she said.

The case went to jurors Thursday afternoon after Bannon told them Smith was criminally liable for “nearly robbing Mike Frier of his life,” while defense lawyer Allen Ressler urged them to view the Dec. 1, 1994, crash as an accident.

“The issue is not whether he’s at fault, but whether he committed a crime,” Ressler said. “In essence, they want to bury him with just one fact” - that he lied.

To convict Smith, jurors must find either that he was intoxicated or was driving recklessly, and that either circumstance contributed to Frier’s injury.

Frier was paralyzed from the waist down when the car carrying him, Smith and Pro Bowl running back Chris Warren crashed after the players spent an evening playing pool and drinking at two clubs.

Police initially arrested Warren, thinking he had been driving. The mixup wasn’t sorted out for days.

Bannon said Smith’s lies indicated he knew he would be in trouble if police learned he was driving his Oldsmobile Bravada when it used a left-turn lane to pass another car, struck a median and careened into a power pole at an estimated 50 mph in a 30-mph zone.

Smith’s lies included telling police that Warren was driving, saying he didn’t know how the accident occurred, and failing to tell them about the second bar where the players had drinks, Bannon said.

If he was innocent, she asked, “Doesn’t it cross your mind that the defendant could have told … the truth?”