A Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a request by Rebecca Grossman's legal team to dismiss murder charges against her in the deaths of two children in a hit-and-run in 2020, as prosecutors rested their case on Friday.
Judge Joseph Brandolino said prosecutors presented sufficient evidence of voluntary intoxication and speeding in the incident that resulted in the deaths of Mark Iskander, 11, and his brother Jacob, 8, at a marked crosswalk as they followed to his mother and younger brother through Triunfo Canyon. Path in Westlake Village.
“I think they have met their burden and the jury should decide. “I am denying the motion without prejudice,” the judge said. Grossman's attorneys are scheduled to begin their defense on Tuesday.
After the prosecution's final witness testified, John Hobson, one of Grossman's attorneys, asked that the murder and hit-and-run charges be dismissed, arguing that prosecutors had not shown that she acted with implied malice and that she did not There was evidence that he fled. the scene.
Grossman's attorney argued that prosecutors had not met the standard for second-degree murder because the suspect did not receive prior formal warning that her behavior was extremely dangerous and showed a reckless disregard for life.
Hobson said the only evidence prosecutors gave of his prior reprimand was a text Grossman sent a month before the incident about teenagers crashing a vehicle and evidence that in 2013 he received a speeding ticket that came with a warning of an officer about the dangers of speeding.
Hobson also asked the judge to dismiss the hit-and-run charge because Grossman stopped as soon as was reasonable.
“The fact is that Ms. Grossman was a short distance from her home,” but she stayed in her vehicle, he told the judge.
Deputy District. Lawyer. Ryan Gould, however, said the prosecution showed implied malice and that Grossman knew of the deadly consequences of speeding from the 2013 ticket for going 92 mph on Highway 101 when he was warned of the deadly nature of the police's actions. he.
As for the hit-and-run charges, Gould noted that Grossman was found by an officer about a third of a mile from the crash site.
“She never returned to the place. She never provided help,” Gould said.
“We know from your text messages that you saw a woman fall in the middle of the road,” he added, referring to a June 2022 text that Grossman sent to a friend in which she said she was distracted at the time of the collision. by the children's mother, Nancy Iskander, who was wearing inline skates and had fallen in the crosswalk. The text, shown to the jury Wednesday, contradicted his version that she had no idea why she had exploded her airbag.
Grossman, 60, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run resulting in death in connection with the collision. The murder charges are unusual in that she was not charged with driving under the influence, which is typically used to prove gross negligence in vehicular deaths.
Prosecutors, however, have argued that Grossman was incapacitated. She had been drinking cocktails with Scott Erickson, a former pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, before the former lovers raced back from a restaurant in separate vehicles, heading to Grossman's lakeside home. A breathalyzer test at the scene showed Grossman had a blood alcohol level of approximately 0.075%; A blood test three hours later returned a result of 0.08%, California's legal limit. Valium was also found in her system, two criminalists testified.
Prosecutors based their case on a retired California Highway Patrol officer turned accident expert, John Grindey, who testified that Grossman was going so fast that his Mercedes' safety system failed to detect the two children at the intersection. of pedestrians to apply the brakes automatically.
Emphasizing the prosecution's repeated theme of lethal speed, Grindey said Grossman's Mercedes 43 GLE approached the Triunfo Canyon Road crosswalk at 81 mph.
“More than… 44 mph, [the safety system] it doesn't detect small children,” he told the jury.
But Grindey, who handled hundreds of fatal crashes as a deputy, acknowledged that Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies who oversaw the crash scene made several mistakes, including taking incorrect actions and allowing parts of Grossman's vehicle to be thrown away.
He also admitted under cross-examination by Tony Buzbee, Grossman's attorney, that if he had known she was following Erickson's black Mercedes AMG through the crosswalk, he would have searched the former Dodgers pitcher's vehicle. She said sheriff's investigators did not do so at the time of the incident.
“I think it would have been important to do that,” Grindey agreed with Buzbee.
Buzbee has argued that Grossman's vehicle was not the first to hit the brothers. He has repeatedly indicated that Erickson's black Mercedes, which sped through the intersection before hers, struck both children, throwing Jacob to the sidewalk and Mark into the air before landing in the path of his SUV.
However, Grindey testified that such a scenario was “impossible” because Erickson's Mercedes had a hood that was too high to send Mark flying upward. She said the damage to Grossman's car and the height of her hood indicated that she was the one who propelled Mark forward by hitting him with the part of the vehicle above the license plate and hit Jacob with the passenger-side headlight, sending him onto the sidewalk. .
Grindey said debris from the crash began 50 feet from the point of impact, a pattern seen when traveling 73 mph.
Grindey said a photograph of the accident scene showed a fog light, part of Grossman's passenger light housing, and that Erikson's vehicle had no such lights. He testified that a photo of a piece of license plate at the scene matched a part missing from Grossman's license plate holder. But he acknowledged that he had not seen those objects in person, because some evidence had been discarded. Grindey said, however, that those errors did not change his opinion that Grossman hit the brothers.
Buzbee told the jury he plans to prove that the children followed their mother across the crosswalk. During a demonstration in front of the court, Buzbee showed how Mark, who was riding a skateboard, turned his back on a vehicle that hit him. That would be consistent with injuries to his back, Buzbee said.
Buzbee, who will begin presenting the defense on Tuesday, said after the proceedings that he “never really expected a dismissal at the end of the state case, but we are way ahead of where we should be at this point.”
“We haven't produced a witness yet, but there is reasonable doubt in this entire case,” he said.
