When a crash on I-5 in Woodland on August 8, 2011 left three people dead and seven others with injuries – some very serious – the Yolo County District Attorney’s office put the blame on “one man and one man only,” Gubani Roderico Rosales Quinteros.
The 42-year-old faced three felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. The defense attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender Allison Zuvela, called the crash a tragic accident and nothing more. At the same time, she noted the poorly planned freeway construction zone that may have played a role.
After two days of deliberation, the jury found Mr. Quinteros, an undocumented resident of Elk Grove, guilty of using the personal identification of another for unlawful purpose, and of false impersonation of Carlos Adrian Quinteros Hernandez.
However, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the main charges, and Judge Mock declared a mistrial.
A member of the jury contacted the Vanguard recently due to concerns about this case that had stuck with the juror in the weeks following the verdict.
The juror wrote the Vanguard in an email, “My mind has not been at ease since I hung the jury, and this matter eats at me knowing that this man sits in jail as I write this.”
The juror, whose name has been withheld by request, told the Vanguard, “I ended up hanging the jury because I felt (and still feel) that there is a strong chance that the defendant was being railroaded for three manslaughter charges due to his possibly being an illegal immigrant.”
The juror added, “I believe that there may be evidence that exists that could potentially exonerate this man of these charges.”
The Vanguard has learned that, while this juror was the lone holdout, other jurors expressed similar concerns following the trial.
“I have since found out that other jurors, who did not speak up during deliberations, have also informed the Public Defender that they felt the defendant was being railroaded,” the juror told the Vanguard. “The best I could do was to hang the jury and a mistrial was declared.”
The Enterprise reported that the jurors were in their second day of deliberations following the trial, that lasted two weeks, when the jurors informed Judge Mock that they had reached an impasse.
The prosecuting attorney, Deputy DA Tiffany Susz, told the Enterprise, “Two jurors had been dismissed from the trial due to family illnesses, and no alternates were left when the jury began its deliberations Tuesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, jurors reported to Judge Stephen Mock they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict because one juror ‘felt that they couldn’t continue the process of deliberating,’ Susz said.”
Critical to the prosecution’s case was expert testimony from Investigator Jason Hamilton, in showing that Mr. Quinteros drove with gross negligence.
Investigator Hamilton has been part of the multi-disciplinary accident investigation team, MAIT, for 17 years. With his team, his job was to reconstruct what happened on August 8. They were able to unfold what happened, based on evaluations from witness reports and from physical evidence.
According to Hamilton, from the first construction sign, motorists had 43 seconds to stop. From the second sign they had at least 24 seconds to stop. Furthermore, he said that motorists had 10-15 seconds to react to stopping traffic, but the defendant did nothing.
The People continued to illustrate Mr. Quinteros’s grossly negligent act by pointing out the number of witnesses who were safely able to come to a stop. Approximately 13 witnesses differed in their braking from the defendant, who failed to apply his brakes.
In addition, Ms. Susz held Mr. Quinteros to a higher degree of traffic care, considering Mr. Quinteros is a commercial driver driving a box truck, which weighs 12,000 pounds without cargo.
However, the juror was concerned about the evidence presented in the case. The juror noted that no physical evidence was presented that showed that the defendant had driven unsafely on the day in question.
The defendant had no drugs or alcohol in his system.
More importantly, every person involved in the crash had testified that they almost crashed into the vehicle in front of them and were worried about being hit by the drivers behind them.
During closing arguments, Public Defender Zuvella argued that the first person arriving to the site prior to the accident had to come to an abrupt stop. This gave each subsequent driver less time to react in order to stop.
Mr. Quinteros crashed the box truck into the first vehicle, and this consequently set off a chain reaction of vehicles crashing into other vehicles, and suggests that Mr. Quinteros had less time than any other driver to react to the sudden stop in traffic.
The juror felt that the lane closure was part of the problem.
“I believe [the lane closure] was executed improperly and created a dangerous and hazardous driving condition,” the juror wrote. “It is my belief that certain entities and agencies (CalTrans, Yolo County, CHP, etc) would be liable to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in settlements unless criminal liability can be placed upon the driver who initiated the collision.”
“I believe that certain investigators have withheld, omitted, and purposely interpreted evidence so that the investigation would focus solely on the driver,” the juror wrote.
The juror felt like the fact that the driver had questionable documentation produced a prejudiced environment, both in terms of the investigation and perhaps in playing a role with the jury deliberation, as well.
In fact, the juror felt pressured during the deliberations to vote guilty on the two charges related to the defendant’s identity and paperwork. The juror came to regret the decision to vote guilty, and said, “I informed the judge that I regret both of those votes and would take them back if I could. Unfortunately, the two guilty verdicts were entered.”
The new trial is set for July 8, 2013.
“I am concerned that the retrial will result in an unjust conviction for a crime that a man did not commit,” the juror wrote. “I feel a deep calling as a human and a citizen to see that true justice is carried out and that responsible parties be held accountable in this matter.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I would like to say a huge thank you to the juror who was brave enough to stand up against the 11 other jurors because he/she felt that the defendant was innocent. It is difficult to follow your conscience, but it is so necessary. My hope is that all jurors stand up for what they believe is just when they are called to be on a jury.
There was only one juror that hung the case for the Galvan brothers the first time it was prosecuted. The DA’s office then prosecuted the Galvans two more times. The trial was hung both times with 11 jurors now believing that the Galvans were innocent. The DA’s office wanted to prosecute them for a 4th time. There was public outcry and the story hit the media. Eventually the DA’s office decided not to continue prosecuting.
It all started because one person was brave enough to stand up because he believed the Galvans were unjustly being prosecuted.
FAI, The juror didn’t say they thought the defendant was innocent. They thought the defendant was being railroaded and believes there MAY be evidence that would exonerate the defendant.
As far as the charges related to the documents, that portion of the case was pretty clear, even by Vanguard standards. If the juror has a hard time handling the cut and dry area of the documents I ‘m not surprised by the difficulty with the manslaughter part. This is an example of jury nullification.
Dear Mr. Obvious,
Were you in court every day hearing all the evidence? Did you read the entire transcript of the trial? That one lone juror was there, so I would have to defer to the people who were there. I agree w/ FAI and applaud the one lone juror who had guts in the deliberation room. The jury did their job.
It’s interesting that you point out the juror may not have thought the person was innocent. In an opposite scenario, do you believe someone may not be guilty if they plea bargain, or they plea no contest?
I was not in the courtroom at all. I have additional concerns that this juror is taking financial liability into account when making their decision. That is not what a juror is supposed to do.
Your scenario is not opposite to the case, we are talking about jurors and what they take into account when making a decision. I’m sure a very small percentage of people have taken plea deals when they were factually innocent.
“I have additional concerns that this juror is taking financial liability into account when making their decision. That is not what a juror is supposed to do.”
I didn’t get the sense that’s what he was saying. He felt that the case was prosecuted in part because CalTrans or whomever might have been sued because of a poor execution of the traffic break.
It is interesting because I recently had a conversation with my brother-in-law in the LA public defender’s office, and he feels like a number of vehicular homicide cases are cases where the city or county may have been liable and the DA’s office prosecuted as almost a risk management strategy to avoid getting sued.
How weird, a public defender says people are being prosecuted for less than honest reasons. Totally weird. Oh yeah, he gets paid to make that argument.
Yeah except he wasn’t getting paid to make that comment when he was having a private discussion with me.
David, if you have a brother-in-law that sells used cars do not take his advise that you need a new car, even if that conversation doesn’t take place on a car lot.
I don’t see the parallel there. I’m not covering his cases in LA, I’m getting his opinion of what’s going on.
Mr. Hamilton’s stopping times and the fact the passenger cars could stop in time don’t mean anything when it comes to stopping times for commercial or delivery trucks. Stopping times for these trucks also depend on
if they are full or empty. Basing the charge of a grossly negligent act on the fact that other drivers were able to safely stop doesn’t seem to take in to consideration any difference in vehicle type. I think the juror was right in voting their conscience when things didn’t add up at trial. Somehow people have forgotten it is the prosecutor that has to prove his case not the defendant.
Bravo to the juror with the integrity to hold out and the alertness to notice the liability issue/false prosecution.
Of course D.A.’s prosecute people in order so save public entities
from liability claims. It happens all the time. They are team players doing what’s expected of them, it helps them get re-election support, and it helps get them recommended for judicial appointments.