August 20, 2008
But is it murder?
In closing remarks, prosecutor, defense agree defendant in limo crash was drunk but disagree on key charge
Martin Heidgen was the only person in the courtroom yesterday who didn't look at the video of his own headlights speeding up the Meadowbrook Parkway toward the front end of a limousine.
Heidgen looked ahead blankly as prosecutor Maureen McCormick played the video taken from the limousine dashboard in her closing statement in his murder trial. He did not flinch as she called him a murderer for killing limo driver Stanley Rabinowitz and 7-year-old Katie Flynn, or when, her voice catching, she pointed her finger at him and called his actions evil and inhuman.
"I ask you to consider that there are things worse than death," McCormick told the jurors who spent the last four weeks hearing devastating testimony about the crash, some of it from members of the Flynn family who survived it. "He [Heidgen] risked the crushing death of Stanley Rabinowitz. He risked, and he got, the decapitation of Katie Flynn. I will ask you again to ask Mrs. Flynn if there are some risks worse than death."
Acting State Supreme Court Judge Alan Honorof is expected to explain the charges that Heidgen faces to jurors this morning, and then they will deliberate. Honorof has not yet decided whether to sequester the jury while it deliberates.
In closing arguments yesterday, the two sides agreed upon nearly as much as they disagreed on. They agreed Heidgen, 25, of Valley Stream, was drunk on the night of the crash. They agreed he was driving the wrong way on the parkway. And they agreed he deserves to be punished.
However, McCormick holds that Heidgen knew he was likely to kill people as he was driving the wrong way on the parkway and didn't care. Heidgen's lawyer, Stephen LaMagna of Garden City, said Heidgen was simply lost and tried to stop as soon as he realized he'd made a mistake.
"An injustice in this case would be holding him not responsible for anything," said LaMagna in his closing statement. "An injustice would also be to convict him of murder." LaMagna suggested Heidgen may instead be guilty of criminally negligent homicide, a lesser charge that carries a maximum sentence of 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison. If convicted of murder, he would face a maximum sentence of 25 years to life.
In a closing statement that lasted about an hour and a half, McCormick painted a picture of a man whose life was falling apart. McCormick said the insurance company Heidgen worked for was closing, he was behind in his bills, he'd failed to get in to nine different law schools and his mother had just married a man Heidgen didn't like. She said though Heidgen made a study of appearing happy to his friends, inside he was distraught.
McCormick said if Heidgen had cared what happened to him or anyone else on the night of the crash, he would have paid attention to the six cars he passed while he was going the wrong way on the parkway. She played the video taken from the limo dashboard twice, and suggested that Heidgen appeared to be aiming for the limo, not swerving to avoid it.
But LaMagna said things were going well for Heidgen in the months before the crash. He said Heidgen only told police he was depressed and drinking alone on the night of the crash in a misguided attempt to protect friends who'd thrown a party that night.
LaMagna conceded that Heidgen was drunk. He'd been drinking at a bar in Manhattan, and then with friends at a party in Merrick, he said. But he said blood evidence that showed Heidgen had as many as 14 drinks in his system at the time of the crash should not be trusted, since state police admitted that they had bungled it. LaMagna also said that while Heidgen passed several cars, there was only one he was sure to have seen - a man who testified that Heidgen's car barely missed his. But LaMagna said that was only an eighth of a mile before the crash, which would have given Heidgen almost no time to get off the road. He also said signs facing his direction on the parkway might have fooled Heidgen into thinking he was going the right way when he wasn't.
"We know that he slowed down," LaMagna said. "And we know that this parkway was built in such a way that it can cause a tragedy. But we also know that Marty was drunk, and he should not have been driving."
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
