WEST JORDAN — Nearly two years after a Tooele man was hit and killed in a traffic accident by a law enforcer responding to help others involved in a high-speed chase, a former Taylorsville police officer pleaded guilty to three reduced charges.
Joseph Corbett was responding on Feb. 7, 2007 about 12:40 a.m. with lights and sirens to set up road spikes during a police chase, though he was not part of the chase itself. At the intersection of 4700 South and Redwood Road he crashed into a vehicle driven by 27-year-old Tooele resident John Douglas, who was killed. Corbett was charged in 3rd District Court with negligent homicide, a class B misdemeanor.
After nearly two years of hotly contested motions and arguments, including questions of whether Douglas was text messaging while driving and whether he had a painkiller in his system at the time of the accident, Corbett plead guilty Thursday to speeding, failure to stop and improper lookout, all class C misdemeanors.
Judge Robert Adkins sentenced Corbett to 12-months probation and ordered a $330 fine, or $110 for each offense. A civil settlement in the case was reached earlier.
The decision to enter into a plea deal came just one week before Corbett's scheduled trial. His attorney, Ed Brass, said he was prepared to go to trial, but ultimately it was his client's decision.
"It's really an intensely personal decision he made and really it's his decision to make," he said.
Salt Lake Deputy District Attorney Christopher Bown said he was not surprised at Corbett's decision. He said Douglas' family was fine with the agreement.
Douglas' wife did not attend the hearing. Other friends and family members, however, including his mother, were there.
"I realize that the accident was just an accident," said Douglas' mother, Elizabeth. "I know (John) would not hold a grudge against officer Corbett."
Douglas' mother said her son was a safe driver and would have gotten out of the way if he had seen Corbett, just as Corbett would have moved if he had seen Douglas. She strongly refuted contentions that Douglas was texting while driving and did drugs.
Likewise, Douglas' widow, who sent a statement to Bown to be read in court, said her husband was not driving unsafely that morning.
"John always had the best of intentions for people," she said. "He was first to forgive and never held a grudge. I want to follow the example of my husband and I want to forgive."
Bown said a text was in fact sent from Douglas' phone that night, but it's impossible to tell what he was doing at the time. Phone records show the text was received by a friend at the same time 911 dispatchers received the call about the accident, he said. However, Bown said it was unknown how long it took for the text to go from Douglas' phone to the other phone. He may have sent it before he started driving and it just happened to reach it's destination when the accident occurred, he said.
As for the drugs, there was evidence of the painkiller Tramadol in Douglas' system. Bown said the amount, however, was so low that the autopsy finding should be considered a "false positive" and therefore unreliable.
Corbett did not make a statement in the courtroom and did not speak to reporters after the hearing. He did submit a written statement to the judge.
Brass said he was very impressed with Douglas' mother and called her a kind woman. But he interpreted the evidence to mean that Douglas was texting at the "precise moment of the accident."
Corbett resigned from the Taylorsville Police Department in September. He currently works as a police officer in a small town in Alaska. His guilty plea will not affect his police certification, Brass said.
By not going to trial, the question of whether all emergency drivers were putting themselves at risk for unfair criminal and civil liability every time they respond to a call remained unanswered, Brass said. Utah Department of Public Safety does not have a uniform emergency driving policy. That potentially creates a problem for all police, fire and ambulance drivers, Brass said, because Utah lawmakers passed an emergency driving law a couple of years ago that says the policies of individual police departments must "conform with the rule established by the Department of Public Safety."
"If you respond (to a call), I suppose you do so at your own risk," Brass said. "The issue is still out there. We still don't know what the standard you conduct yourself is."
Bown, however, contended a standard was already outlined in the Utah Code, part of which says officers must slow down as necessary and clear an intersection before proceeding. The case, he said, sends a message to all law enforcers that road rules need to be followed even when they're responding with lights and sirens.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com