AFTER FIVE HOURS OF DELIBERATION, JURORS STILL UNDECIDED ON FATE OF TRUCKER CHARGED IN DOUBLE-FATAL CRASH IN LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Firefighters work to free a victim trapped in an
overturned car after a crash on Route 222 in Manheim Township in this file
photo from 2012.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Lancaster County, PA:
After more than five hours of deliberations Monday,
jurors still haven’t decided the fate of a trucker charged with causing a
double-fatal crash in 2012.
The jury panel is deliberating following three days of
testimony in the trial of 24-year-old Mawuyrayrassuna E. Noviho.
Noviho is charged with two counts of vehicular homicide
for allegedly pulling onto the highway - at an extremely slow speed
and without lights - into the path of Katie West's car.
West's Volkswagen collided with the truck, killing her
husband, Joshua West, and their 2-year-old son Joshua "Charlie" West.
Deliberations began about 2 p.m. Lancaster County Judge
David Ashworth sent the panel home at 7:30 p.m.
They will resume Tuesday morning.
While asking Ashworth questions on the law Monday
evening, the foreman indicated the panel is split.
“We believe we are closer in our understanding of the
facts of the case,” the foreman, in his 40’s, told the judge about 6:30 p.m.
“We are still split, however.”
Prosecutors allege that Noviho, on a training license,
was driving at 17 mph at the time of the collision.
Two eye witnesses, traveling behind the West car,
testified that they didn't even see the truck until the collision, which flung
the Volkswagen into the air, eventually landing on its roof.
First Assistant Todd E. Brown, in a closing argument Monday
afternoon, said the time between the truck appearing on the highway and impact
was "almost instantaneous."
Noviho's defense team revealed during testimony that
Katie West had heroin in her system at the time of the crash.
In fact, a toxicologist testified, she used heroin an
hour or two, at most, before the crash.
"Things don't just appear out of the
darkness," defense lawyer Robert Daniels argued in closing, suggesting
West passed out at the wheel. "We know she used heroin after she picked up
her kids."
Mrs. West and her 4-year-old daughter survived the
crash.
Brown countered in his closing that even a sober driver
couldn't have avoided the slow truck.
"The heroin," he said, "it doesn't
matter. There's no proof that, if she was high, it caused the crash."
Jurors began deliberations following closing arguments
and Ashworth's instructions on the law.
Noviho, who was driving for Utah-based C.R. England, is
free on unsecured bail.