Closings set in trial over '12 fatal crash

Two experts offer differing views of LR accident blamed on drunken driving

Crash-reconstruction experts offered opposing opinions as to what caused a collision that killed a 60-year-old grandmother as testimony ended Tuesday in the trial of the man accused in the crash.

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Closing arguments are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. today before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims.

Prosecutors contend that the defendant, Mack Louis Hinson III, drunkenly lost control of his speeding car and launched a pickup into the vehicle that carried Narjis Meti of Little Rock.

The defense has countered that the crash was caused by a "catastrophic failure" of a critical steering component in the truck.

Charged with negligent homicide, Hinson did not testify. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the Class B felony charge. Testing showed Hinson had prescription medication in his system and a blood-alcohol level 50 percent higher than the legal limit.

Police say Hinson, 36, driving a new Toyota Prius, traveled into the adjacent traffic lane and forced a Dodge Ram 2500 pickup into oncoming traffic on Cantrell Road in October 2012. The truck collided with Meti's 2005 Mazda 6, killing her instantly in a crash that sent the pickup vaulting over her car. Estimates are the Prius was moving at 64 mph in the 45 mph zone.

Defense attorneys David Cannon and John Collins have raised questions about whether the blood tests can be trusted. The technician that performed the blood testing has acknowledged on the witness stand that some of the results were contaminated by cocaine and an unknown substance, but told jurors that would not affect the lab results.

Cannon and Collins also have pushed back against the accusations that Hinson is to blame, positioning their client as another casualty of the collision. The defense argues that a defective steering component -- the left front-wheel tie rod -- gave way after the truck clipped Hinson's Prius, which caused the truck driver to lose control and drive into the oncoming cars.

Tuesday's proceedings were dominated by the testimony of defense expert Dale Donham, a retired state trooper who operates the Donham Accident Reconstruction consulting service.

The Prius' untouched driver-side mirror and lack of serious damage to that side of the car shows that the police theory can't be right, Donham told the nine women and three men of the jury. If the police accusation is that the Toyota got side by side with the truck then pushed the much larger vehicle into oncoming traffic, that mirror should be damaged, if not destroyed, and the car's side should have more than just cosmetic damage, he said.

"That mirror wouldn't be there," Donham said. "You'd have a lot more damage."

Scrape marks on the front and rear driver sides show the car was more likely sideswiped twice by the pickup, which then fishtailed, causing the tie rod to break, he said.

Donham testified that police misinterpreted skid marks and overlooked broken parts on the pickup to wrongly place blame on Hinson.

Witness testimony that the Prius was the first to lose control by taking a hard left into the path of the truck cannot be considered definitive proof that Hinson caused the collision, Donham told jurors, because none of those witnesses could say why the Prius changed course so abruptly. He said there's no proof that Hinson had clipped the curb then over-steered into the truck's lane, like police say.

"I could not find any evidence at the scene that he struck the curb. I could not find any evidence on the car that he struck the curb," Donham told jurors. "A witness statement to me is the least accurate of all of the evidence."

To force the truck, which weighs more than twice the Prius, the Toyota would have to be topping 80 mph, Donham said. The car is just too small and light, he said.

Challenged by deputy prosecutor Kelly Ward, Donham, who estimated he's being paid about $12,000 for his efforts, acknowledged his findings have some flaws. He likely missed some road evidence that was worn away because he couldn't survey the crash site until two weeks after the collision and he misunderstood some of the "black box" data from the Prius. But those errors were minor oversights that don't affect his conclusion that Hinson did not cause the crash, Donham testified.

Questions about the "black box" data caused prosecutors to put the police investigator, Ralph Breshears, back on the stand to defend his seven-month investigation that led to Hinson's arrest.

He said the data showed that Hinson had strongly turned the steering wheel, "whipping it as far as it would go," about the time of the collision. Hinson also had "punched" the accelerator "to the floor" and reached 64 mph before "stomping on the brake," Breshears testified. Those moves in that time frame corroborate his model of how the collision occurred, Breshears told jurors.

Questioned by the defense, Breshears acknowledged he'd made some errors in his testimony, like mistaking molding on the driver-side mirror for damage from a collision. He also acknowledged that he was not able to interpret all of the data retrieved from the Prius' black box, but said he had been taught enough for his crash-reconstruction reports to be accurate.

Metro on 12/17/2014

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