Judge to rule on allowing victims’ families to testify

Friday, May 24, 2002 | 10:02 a.m.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure was to rule this morning whether to allow family members of three people killed in an April 2000 auto accident to testify at today's sentencing of Mitchell Dettloff.

Dettloff, 36, was convicted in March of three counts of leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and his attorneys, Karen Winckler and Richard Wright, contend that such a verdict means the jury did not find that he caused the crash.

They were to argue today that because the jury did not return guilty verdicts on involuntary manslaughter or reckless driving charges, family members of those killed should not be allowed to testify.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker is expected to argue that relatives of deceased accident victims Holly Barton, 33, Benjamin Barton, 8, and Brian Cooper, 30, also are victims and should get their say in court.

James Barton, Holly's husband who was seriously injured, and Kim Cooper, Brian's wife, are scheduled to speak should Bonaventure rule against the defense motion.

"(The motion) was upsetting but not unexpected. Par for the course, something that I would expect from Mr. Dettloff," Barton said before the hearing.

If he's allowed to talk, he said he would "Ontalk about Holly and Benjamin, and I will tell the judge what a danger to society Mr. Dettloff is for not taking responsibility."

Barton, a plumber who is raising his three surviving children and a nephew, said he had no statement prepared and would speak from his heart.

He described these past two years as "very difficult" and said he has been able to get through by "God and family -- the need to take care of my kids."

Bonaventure will decide whether Dettloff should serve three terms of two-to-15 years concurrently or consecutively for leaving the scene.

Prosecutors alleged that, after Dettloff merged onto U.S. 95 from Ann Road, he drifted right, over-corrected and veered left into a Ford F-250 pickup carrying James Barton and his family. Barton's vehicle then went across the dirt median and struck Brian Cooper's vehicle head-on.

Dettloff told jurors that after his vehicle collided with Barton's he left the scene because he but did not see anyone pulled over and assumed that Barton had left. He had no idea about the second collision involving the Bartons and Cooper, Dettloff said.

"What makes sense is Mr. Dettloff, at that time, didn't know about the accident, he didn't know of the carnage left behind," Wright said in his closing arguments, noting that if his client indeed was trying to avoid capture he would not have returned to the scene that night.