Convictions tossed in deadly car crash
SEATTLE – A judge has granted the sole survivor of one of the state’s deadliest car crashes the right to a new trial, saying a city judge abused his discretion by giving the jury access to evidence that was unfairly prejudicial against the defendant.
King County Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts overturned Teresa Hedlund’s February 2003 misdemeanor convictions for being an accomplice to drunken driving, furnishing alcohol to a minor and giving tobacco to a minor.
Hedlund, 31, was acquitted of being an accomplice to reckless driving – a charge that stemmed from a video she shot from the front passenger’s seat of the car moments before the crash that killed six of her friends and left her critically injured.
In her ruling, issued Sept. 3, Roberts said Auburn Municipal Judge Patrick Burns should not have let the jury see a video of a party at Hedlund’s condominium where she and her six friends were drinking alcohol before the crash.
The video included footage of Hedlund’s 4-year-old daughter with a lit cigarette in her mouth, at one point baring her bottom for the camera while dancing.
“The prejudice to the defendant is extreme, far outweighing any probative value to the evidence,” Roberts wrote. “The trial court abused its discretion in admitting the portions of the video tape that portrayed the defendant’s daughter dancing and smoking.”
Roberts ruled that the lower-court judge also erred by letting prosecutors lump the tobacco-furnishing charge with charges stemming from the deadly crash. She argued that prosecutors could have easily tried the tobacco charge separately.
The judge also ruled that the jury should not have been allowed to listen to a 911 tape in which a crash witness erroneously reported that one of the victims had been decapitated.
“The only purpose for this evidence was to arouse a sense of horror in the jury,” Roberts wrote.
Auburn City Attorney Dan Heid said he was disappointed by Robert’s ruling, arguing that the municipal court judge gave careful consideration to numerous pretrial motions about what evidence should be presented to the jury.
“The pleadings in this case would choke a horse,” Heid told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Heid said he and his staff would spend the next week or two deciding whether to appeal Roberts’ decision, proceed to a second trial or drop the charges.
Defense attorney Thomas A. Campbell said Hedlund was “pleased as punch” by Roberts’ ruling, even if she’s agonizing at the thought of a new trial.
Hedlund was hospitalized for months after the car she was riding in spun out of control and slammed into a concrete support pillar near the SuperMall of the Great Northwest on July 16, 2001.
Her fiance, 22-year-old Tim Stewart, died. The others killed were: 17-year-old April Byrd, the minor Hedlund was convicted of supplying with alcohol; Jayme Vomenici, 18, the car’s owner and the only sober person in it; the driver, Tom Stewart, 22; Marcus Cooper, 21; and Brandon Dupea, 21.