Defense says Weller was in panicked state
By AMY KAUFMAN Special to the Daily Press
DOWNTOWN LA — George Russell Weller’s attorney began making the case for “pedal error” in court on Friday, claiming a rare phenomenon in which panic and fear causes a driver to hit the accelerator rather than the brake is to blame for the then-86-year-old driver plowing through a crowded Farmer’s Market three years ago, killing 10 people and injuring dozens more.
Lawyer Mark Borenstein, who is defending Weller against 10 charges of vehicular manslaughter in the case, called Richard A. Schmidt Ph.D., a former UCLA professor and expert in human performance research, to the stand on Friday and BY KEVIN HERRERA spent nearly four hours attempting to show that Weller’s accident was caused by pedal error.
Weller, now 89, was not present during the fourth week of an estimated six-week trial, after being granted special permission for absence due to his declining health. He faces up to 18 years in prison if a jury finds him guilty on all counts.
A result of pedal error is unintended acceleration, which can cause a hypervigilant or panicked state, according to Schmidt. In a taped police interview, Weller responded that he didn’t know if he had his foot on the accelerator or the brake pedal when he drove through the Arizona Avenue market-place on July 16, 2003.
Schmidt prepared a chart indicating signs of “Information Processing Changes Under Hypervigilance.” The changes noted sensations such as feelings of helplessness, simplistic ‘childlike’ thinking, distractibility and not considering the consequences of one’s errors as signs of the stresses.
Schmidt said that when one enters a hypervigilant state, they become desensitized to stimulation in one’s peripheral vision.
“When I’m calm, I detect it. But if you present the same stimulus when I’m threatened, I don’t. Vision has shrunk into a tunnel and the perception of a periphery gets overlooked,” testified Schmidt, noting that someone in a hypervigilant state, such as Weller, would be “looking straight ahead at all things he’s approaching, riveted by those things and terrified that he’d hit them,” but would be unable to steer away from them.
Schmidt said he would expect any driver in similar circumstances to act the way Mr. Weller did, adding he believes Weller was well-aware of his actions, but incapable of stopping them.
Schmidt’s sentiments were echoed by the testimony of Thomas Shelton, a former 31-year-member of the California Highway Patrol. Having investigated close to 7,000 accidents throughout his career, Shelton said he was familiar with pedal error and unintended acceleration, encountering a “small percentage” of such accidents.
During his career with the CHP, Shelton investigated less than five pedal error accidents, but agreed with Schmidt, saying that it was “only circumstance” that controlled the extent of damage and bodily harm in the event of a pedal error.
Shelton recounted the first pedal error accident he witnessed, in which an elderly woman was in such a hypervigilant state that she drove her car on top of another vehicle.
Shelton testified that when he arrived, the woman was “still grabbing the steering wheel with her foot fully pressed” on the accelerator. He said he had to physically climb into the driver’s seat to turn off the ignition and noticed that the engine was revving “as high as it can rev.”
“I can still remember her eyes,” Shelton recalled,“the word that comes to my mind is catatonic.”
In each of the instances Shelton recalled, the panicked individuals “all thought their foot was on the brake. They didn’t realize they’d made a pedal error.”
Officer Christopher Dawson, a traffic investigator for the Santa Monica Police Department, briefly testified on Friday, recounting call he received from David Eisenbaum, the man who claims to have witnessed Weller driving irregularly on San Vicente Boulevard near the Bundy Drive intersection four hours prior to the catastrophic Farmer’s Market crash.
Dawson verified that Eisenbaum made the call and was “upset” by Weller’s driving.
The trial against Weller resumes Tuesday morning, with Shelton expected back on the stand.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 30, 2006. Read the original PDF.