Final arguments in fatal crash trial

Prosecutor Michael Wendler ticked off a list of ways he said Carlos Humberto Valderrama Siordia was negligent — the basis for the misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter — including not using the horn, not placing parking blocks behind the wheels while using the truck on a roofing job at the top of the steep street and not veering the 12,000-pound trucks onto a side street.

"You heard no evidence of anything else that caused this collision,” Wendler said. "He is the captain of that ship. He is responsible for that truck.”

But defense attorney John Elworth reiterated the same argument he made at the beginning of the trial: The Sept. 22, 2008 death of Tyler Fahy was "a tragic accident ... it was not a homicide.”

Aside from the misdemeanor count, jurors can also consider an infraction conviction if they believe Siordia was speeding rather than negligent.

Siordia, 44, of Modesto, was cleaning up a roofing job at the top of Edison Avenue just before the crash. Siordia tried moving the truck away from the home to accommodate opening its backdoors when it traveled down 43rd Avenue at an almost 14 percent grade for four-tenths of a mile. The truck crashed into the Ford Escape SUV driven by Adrienne Colao and carrying 9-year-old Tyler Fahy who were headed to the Mollie Stone’s grocery store. The SUV in turn smacked into the Lexus driven by April Bisgaard and Siordia’s truck eventually came to a rest outside the shopping cart corral.

A witness cut the seat belt wound around Fahy’s neck with a knife from the grocery store but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

His mother was flown to Stanford Medical Center and testified, as the prosecution’s first witness, that she remembers nothing between driving to the store and waking up in the hospital.

Prosecutors charged Siordia that December after mechanical experts said there was no brake failure. Wendler told jurors although there are different theories of what exactly happened, they all point back to human error.

One by one, Elworth poked holes in Wendler’s list of possible causes and told jurors there is no room for "maybe” and "perhaps” in a criminal trial.  

All the prosecution proved, Elworth said, is that there was a collision. There is no absolute proof, he said, that Siordia didn’t try braking or that the brakes failed or that any pre-drive inspections or use of the horn would have prevented any crash or injury.

A defense crash expert testified the truck was going 40 mph at impact instead of the expected 57 mph — proof, Elworth said, that his client tried braking.

Prosecutors simply "don’t believe in math and physics,” Elworth said.

He also called arguments like that of using parking blocks "red herrings” because they would not have been behind the wheels when Siordia attempted to move the truck and lost control. Turning down a side street was an extremely dangerous proposition that is not required by law, he said.

Instead, he said the prosecution’s case is one of hindsight and speculation.

"This case is filled with doubt,” he said, adding that it flies in the face of common sense to believe a commercial driver with a decade of experience wouldn’t at least try the brake to stop the speeding vehicle.

But Wendler said there is little other explanation because the brakes worked before and after the crash, as several experts called testified to during the trial.

Wendler again and again returned to the definitions of negligence and what a reasonable person would do in a similar situation. Siordia, he said, cannot be compared to non-commercial or new drivers, for example, because he must meet a different standard to receive a license.

"Because they are behind a death machine ... if not handled properly,” Wendler said.

Siordia is free from custody on a $25,000 bail bond. He and his employer are also being sued civilly by Bisgaard and Fahy’s family.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102.