Prosecutors and defense attorneys painted different pictures of
a tragic July 4 accident as testimony got under way in the Robert
Orabuena manslaughter trial Wednesday.
After completing jury selection in the morning, opening
arguments began shortly before 2 p.m. with Deputy District Attorney
Denny Wei speaking to the jury first.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys painted different pictures of a tragic July 4 accident as testimony got under way in the Robert Orabuena manslaughter trial Wednesday.
After completing jury selection in the morning, opening arguments began shortly before 2 p.m. with Deputy District Attorney Denny Wei speaking to the jury first.
Holding up an enlarged picture of the victim, Joseph Judnick, 48, of Salinas, Wei stressed the point that the prosecution’s case was about Judnick’s untimely and tragic death “caused by the defendant,” he said in court.
“The defendant sees Joe and despite him seeing Joe, he cuts across the road into a driveway but he doesn’t make it,” Wei said in court.
Wei also impressed upon the jury the violent nature of Judnick’s death when he described some of the injuries he sustained in the accident.
“All of his ribs were broken, his pelvis was shattered and the eighth thoracic vertebrae in his back was completely severed,” Wei said.
He told the jury that the prosecution intends to prove it was Orabuena’s reckless disregard for where he was going that led to the accident.
However, defense attorney Arthur Cantu drew a different picture from the chain of events that led to Judnick’s death.
Cantu told the jury that what happened on Fairview Road in July was not Orabuena’s fault but that the lion’s share of the blame rests with Judnick for traveling at an estimated speed of 92 mph.
“Had Mr. Judnick been traveling at 55 mph there would never have been an accident,” Cantu said in court.
However, Cantu said his defense of Orabuena will not consist of a campaign to discredit or destroy Judnick’s memory.
“No one is ever going to impugn this man’s character, and that is not what this case is about,” he said.
Testimony for the prosecution began with Judnick’s nephew, Ken Rider, 30, taking the stand and talking about lending his uncle a 2002 Harley-Davidson V-Rod to ride.
Rider testified that he had won the motorcycle in a radio contest from KSJO months before and that his uncle wanted to try it out, so on the afternoon of July 4 he let him ride it.
The prosecution quickly followed with testimony from Consuelo Reyes, a local motorist who was driving a GMC box truck north on Fairview Road just a few car lengths behind Orabuena’s 1987 Dodge van.
Reyes, who testified with the help of an interpreter, said she saw Orabuena slow down to about three or five miles per hour, and put on his left turn signal.
Orabuena was going so slow when he started to make the left turn into a private driveway off of Fairview that she passed him on the right side of the road.
“I continued behind him until he put his brake on and that’s when I passed him on the side, going off the road just a little,” Reyes testified. “I couldn’t assure you but it seems like it was seconds later when the accident happened.”
The prosecution continued with a rapid procession of witnesses by calling Sandy Jones and her husband Charles Jones to the stand to testify.
Sandy Jones, a registered nurse, and her husband, a firefighter with the city of Santa Clara, were the first people to provide first aid to Judnick after the 4:25 p.m. crash on Fairview Road north of the Spring Grove Road intersection.
“I heard what sounded like a crash so I ran outside,” Sandy Jones said.
A portion of the Jones’ property sits just across the road from the scene of the accident. The Jones’ hopped over their fence and ran out to help Judnick who was motionless next to a fence on the side of the road.
“I went over and felt his arm and it was cold,” Sandy Jones said. “I saw his arm and it had scratches, but it hadn’t bled at all, and I felt his carotid artery and there was no pulse.”
Working together, the couple performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Judnick until paramedics and other emergency crews arrived.
“It had to be 10 minutes or so and then I asked one of the CHP officers who arrived if they had a breathing apparatus,” Charles Jones said.
Testimony in the Orabuena trial is scheduled to continue this morning with a California Highway Patrol Officer to take the stand first.
