A November Solano County Superior Court docket trial has been set for a 52-year-old parolee charged with gross vehicular manslaughter whereas intoxicated, the results of a March 2019 motorbike crash in Fairfield that killed his feminine passenger.
Stephen Duane Chiara was scheduled for a trial setting Thursday in Division 11 however didn’t seem in courtroom in the course of the scheduled morning continuing in Decide William J. Pendergast’s courtroom.
Nonetheless, Alternate Public Defender Jennifer Proctor advised the decide she was able to schedule the trial for 9 a.m. Nov. 27. The trial, she estimated, would final three weeks.
Pendergast additionally set a number of pretrial issues: a trial affirmation at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 12 and a trial administration convention, plus a parole revocation listening to, at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 17 within the Justice Middle in Fairfield.
Chiara’s newest courtroom scheduling follows a Jan. 24, 2020 preliminary listening to, when Pendergast dominated there was sufficient proof to carry him for additional arraignment on three counts moreover gross vehicular manslaughter whereas intoxicated: driving below the affect; DUI inflicting bodily damage; and driving and not using a license.
Throughout the listening to, as beforehand reported, Chiara’s legal professional on the time, Deputy Public Defender Pamela Boskin, referring to testimony from California Freeway Patrol Officer John Hyperlink, questioned whether or not her shopper confirmed negligence on the time of the March 27 crash.
She additional argued that there was “nothing that correlated” — particularly the alleged odor of alcohol coming from Chiara’s clothes — to her shopper’s blood-alcohol content material, which was examined and located to be larger than the 0.08 authorized restrict, at 0.13.
Boskin additionally raised doubts concerning the two blood samples taken by a phlebotomist contracted with the Solano County District Legal professional’s Workplace, suggesting a mistake might have been made.
Moreover, she raised the likelihood that one other car might have spooked Chiara on the time of the 8:45 p.m. crash, which occurred when he was driving his Harley-Davidson motorbike east on Interstate 80 beneath the Inexperienced Valley Highway overcrossing and crashed right into a guard rail.
In response to Boskin’s statements, then-Deputy District Legal professional Susan A. Rados, who was main the prosecution on the time, mentioned the case “rests on whether or not there was one other automotive concerned” that contributed to the motorbike crash ultimately.
There was “no proof that one other car” might have been concerned, she mentioned, difficult Boskin, and alluded to statements made by a witness, Andrew Lind of Suisun Metropolis, whom Hyperlink interviewed after the crash.
A California Freeway Patrol report said that “for unknown causes, the motive force was unable to take care of management of the motorbike and each the motive force and the feminine passenger have been ejected from the motorbike.”
In accordance with the DA’s charging paperwork, Chiara was alleged to have been below the affect of each alcohol and an unspecified drug on the time of the crash.
Chiara and his passenger, Mary “Max” Hadley, have been taken to NorthBay Medical Middle in Fairfield with main accidents. She later died.
Hadley, recognized as a resident of each Eureka and Fairfield, labored as a self-employed investigator in Humboldt County, in response to her household.
Hyperlink testified that Chiara suffered a compound fracture within the crash and he interviewed him on the hospital, the place, he mentioned, he smelled alcohol on the defendant.
The officer mentioned Chiara advised him that he was “touring at freeway pace and somebody lower him off.” Hyperlink additionally famous that Chiara mentioned Hadley was his fiancee — a press release a few of her family dispute.
Hyperlink additionally advised Rados {that a} skilled CHP investigator, after analyzing the motorbike, decided that “there was nothing actually (mechanically) fallacious” with it that may result in a crash.
Chiara was on parole on the time of the crash, in response to the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In 1991, he was arrested in reference to the demise of a Fortuna lady, Mary Kesser, after he was discovered hiding with a sawed-off shotgun in a closet at a residence near her dwelling, in response to a Eureka Instances-Commonplace report. Chiara reportedly was employed by Kesser’s husband, who sought to kill her for insurance coverage cash.
Chiara was convicted in January 1993. He was paroled to the Bay Space in July 2018, in response to the CDCR. He stays within the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield on $180,000 bail.
