Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday reversed two of the three convictions of a Las Vegas man found guilty of leaving the scene of a traffic accident in which three people were killed.
But the court, in a decision written by Justice Bill Maupin, refused to throw out the case altogether, rejecting Dettloff's argument that he did not know he had been in an accident that involved injury.
The ruling should not affect the immediate future of Mitchell E. Dettloff, who is serving three concurrent sentences of four to 10 years in prison for the April 22, 2001, collision that killed three people and seriously injured another.
Dettloff was merging onto U.S. 95 from Ann Road when he drifted right, overcorrected and veered left into a Ford F-250 pickup carrying James and Holly Barton and their son Benjamin, according to court records. The Bartons' vehicle then went across the dirt median and struck Brian Cooper's vehicle head-on.
Cooper and Holly and Benjamin Barton died in the accident and James Barton sustained severe personal injuries.
According to court testimony, Dettloff drove away, picked up his children and drove back through the accident scene 15 to 20 minutes later in his damaged vehicle.
Dettloff did not answer the door that night when law enforcement officials came to his home. He left the next day with his wife and children and was arrested three days later.
Dettloff claimed he did not stop because the dust generated by the vehicles obscured his rear vision and he thought he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
He was convicted of three of the 11 counts charged and was sentenced to three concurrent terms of 48 to 120 months in prison. He was also ordered to pay $76,662 in restitution and fined $2,000. He was given credit for 395 days served in jail or house arrest prior to the sentence.
According to state parole officials Dettloff comes up for parole next April.
In the appeal lawyers for Dettloff contended that the state must prove that the person was aware an accident caused bodily injury or death in order to sustain a felony conviction.
Maupin, in rejecting the argument, wrote, "We hold that actual or constructive knowledge of injury or death is not an element of the felony offense of leaving the scene of an accident.
"To hold otherwise would encourage 'hasty retreats' from accident scenes by at-fault or impaired drivers to avoid gaining knowledge that someone had been injured and, correspondingly, avoid criminal responsibility under the hit-and-run statute."
The court also said the Dettloff interpretation of the law would also provide "a loophole to criminal liability" and would be "an additional incentive for persons involved in serious accidents to leave the scene to avoid other types of criminal liability, including drunken or reckless driving.
"In summary, with no incentive to stay at the scene to avoid a hit-and-run charge, the at-fault driver could achieve objectives inconsistent with the public interest by fleeing to avoid even more serious criminal liability."
But in throwing out two of the three charges, Maupin wrote that multiple convictions are prohibited when a person leaves the scene of a single accident.
District Attorney David Roger, whose office prosecuted Detloff in 2001, said prosecutors expected those convictions to be overturned.
Roger based his prediction on the Firestone v. Nevada case earlier this year, in which the Supreme Court ruled drivers cannot be charged for multiple counts of hit-and-run stemming from one accident, he said.
The Nevada District Attorneys Association is planning to present a bill draft to the 2005 Legislature that would change the ruling, allowing prosecutors to charge drivers with one count of hit-and-run for each person injured in an accident, he said.
Clark County Public Defender Philip Kohn, whose office represented Dettloff, declined to comment on the ruling.
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