Blame Game 2

A DEFENSE PUTS BLAME AGAIN ON VICTIM
© 1998 The Arizona Republic
By Art Thomason, The Arizona Republic, April 28, 1998

His blood alcohol was a flammable liquid. One hundred forty-two ounces of beer and two shots of high-octane Jagermeister. Witnesses say he had been smoking pot, It was a mixture, according to court records, that pickled his 20-year-old brain into a state of reckless drunkenness as he barreled his Nissan pickup on a death delivery two weeks before Christmas.
It was a prescription that impaired his senses so much that he didn't even brake before his vehicle plowed at 77 mph into the rear of the Jeep Cherokee at a Chandler intersection.
The sport utility was hurled 180 feet, bursting into flames. Its driver, Aimee Ellis, 20, who was waiting for the light to turn green, never had a chance
"The rear of the vehicle was annihilated," wrote Anthony Novitsky, deputy county attorney, in a court memorandum. ". . . the Jeep exploded into a ball of fire. The remnants of the Jeep were consumed by the subsequent blaze, as was its young driver.
She was burned "well beyond recognition."
Yet, we're now told that Aimee brought her gruesome death on herself She caused the horrible collision, not the speeding pickle-brain with the blood alcohol level of .231.
This is the defense concocted by Larry Kazan, the attorney representing Aimee's alleged killer, Matt Nicholas Demos. This is the defense that we hear often in the Valley of drunken driving. Blame it on the victim who has been silenced by a drunkard's fatal blow.
This is the defense we heard earlier this month in the case of another drunk driver, a quadruple manslaughter case. Attorney Sandra Slaton tried to convince a jury that the driver of four teens was at fault and not her client, Jose Angel Ortega Jr., who was legally drunk.
Attorney Slaton told the jury that the teen was making an illegal left turn with three of his friends aboard when Ortega T-boned them.
The jury didn't buy it.
They were convinced that Ortega, with a blood-alcohol level of 0. 149 percent, was the mass killer, as charged, as he raced his Dodge down a Mesa street at 64 mph and rammed it into Nate Shotton's car.
Despite the jury's verdict of guilty in the Ortega case, there are striking similarities in the defense strategies employed by Slaton and more recently by Kazan for the 0.231 Demos.
Kazan charges that Chandler police ignored the statement of a witness who claims that Aimee made a left-turn in front of Demos.
Two other witnesses told Chandler police that Aimee was stopped at the red light when Demos destroyed her life.
Kazan also alleges that Aimee too had been drinking and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.07 percent.
That's not inebriation in Arizona or any other state. It's below Arizona's legally drunk standard of 0.10 percent.
But it's an opening for a defense lawyer, in this case one of the Valley's best trial attorneys.
It could mean the difference between a drunk being found innocent or a sober teen found at fault in this second-degree murder case. It could mean the difference between several years in the penitentiary or probation.
It could also mean that Aimee's alleged killer may have a tough row to hoe if the case goes to trial and he gets a jury like Ortega got.