Court: Radar Detector Seizure OK
Frederick W. Petroll, who has already completed a prison term for his conviction on three counts of vehicular homicide, was asleep at the wheel and traveling faster than the 50-mph speed limit when his tractor-trailer plowed into stopped traffic on the afternoon of April 21, 1995, witnesses testified at his trial.
The impact set off a chain reaction of crashes involving several vehicles, and the car that was struck by the truck burst into flames. The three occupants, a married couple and their infant son, were unable to escape and were pronounced dead at the scene.
In his appeal, Petroll contended that items seized from the cab of his truck by police in Manheim Township, including the radar detector and Petroll's log book, should not have been admitted as evidence against him.
However, the justices said the log book and other items should not have been taken without a search warrant and should not have been admitted as evidence.
A majority concluded that those items were not a significant enough part of the evidence to warrant a new trial, but Justice Stephen A. Zappala argued in a dissenting opinion that a new trial was warranted because prosecutors relied heavily on that evidence.
To sustain a vehicular homicide conviction, prosecutors had to prove that Petroll of Eastampton, N.J., was violating other traffic laws at the time of the fatal crash.
The majority opinion written by Justice Sandra Schultz Newman cited testimony from multiple witnesses that Petroll had been speeding, and testimony by a medical technician who said Petroll had admitted to her immediately after the crash that he had dozed off and woke up too late to prevent it.
Donald Totaro, a Lancaster County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, said yesterday the log book bolstered other testimony by showing that Petroll had been driving more than the allowed number of hours without rest.
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