Lawyer innocent of hit-and-run in fatal accident

Saturday, Oct. 11, 1997 | 6:58 a.m.

The directed verdict cleared attorney Audrey Damonte of leaving the scene of the accident that killed pedestrian Don Ferris on a rainy night in December.

Senior District Judge Carl Christensen made the ruling after a jury of eight men and four women failed to reach a unanimous decision in the case.

The panel deliberated about 10 hours over two days before informing the judge around 2 p.m. Saturday that they were deadlocked.

Christensen declared a mistrial. Damonte's lawyer, Bill Maddox, then asked the judge to rule in the case as the trier of facts.

Christensen proclaimed Damonte innocent.

Carson City District Attorney Noel Waters had argued that Damonte, 33, was required under law to stop after she had struck Ferris.

He said Damonte fled because she had consumed alcohol earlier that evening and feared the consequences.

But Damonte has claimed all along that she didn't realize she had struck a person. Maddox argued that because she did not know she had hit someone, she had no legal obligation to stop.

Police reports said Ferris, 42, was wearing dark clothing, was outside a crosswalk and was legally intoxicated when struck Dec. 10 by Damonte's vehicle while crossing U.S. 395.

Waters had said Damonte likely would not have been charged at all if she had remained at the scene.

Carson City Justice of the Peace John Tatro dismissed the felony charge following a preliminary hearing in March, saying he believed Damonte was unaware that she had hit Ferris.

Waters appealed and the charge was reinstated by Christensen.

The Nevada Supreme Court later rejected Damonte's appeal of the reinstated charge, paving the way for the case to go to trial.

Damonte admitted to sipping a few drinks that evening, but blood tests taken hours after the accident showed her driving ability wasn't impaired.

On Friday, she testified she felt a "thud" and heard a noise that sounded like "someone slapping the car."

But she said the airbag on her 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee did not deploy. She said she stopped briefly, looked in her rearview mirrors and out the windows, then proceeded north after seeing nothing.

"The sound wasn't that loud," she testified. "It was loud enough to get me to stop, but it wasn't loud enough to make me think I hit a person."

Damonte continued driving north until her Jeep broke down just south of Reno from damage caused by the collision.

She turned herself in several hours later after her husband heard news accounts of the hit-and-run accident.