Music video gives look at boy paralyzed in drunk driving crash

KELLER, Texas -- "Blink your eyes if you remember me," said 17-year-old Michael Lane, and his childhood friend Sergio Molina blinked.

It's the only way Sergio communicates. Michael treasures every blink.

"It's heartbreaking. Sergio was such a happy kid, always laughing," Michael said. "Had this electric, outgoing personality."

The two met in middle school. Michael is now a junior at Keller Central High. He's a budding hip hop singer and songwriter. And now he's writing about tragedy.

"Four people are dead and I can't even see remorse. I ain't let out that much tears since my parents got divorced. And they want rehab?" he sings.

Those lyrics are a nod to the 10 years of probation given to 16-year-old Ethan Couch, who was drunk when he was driving a pickup full of teenagers. He plowed into an accident scene, killing the driver of a broken down car and three Good Samaritans who had come to her aid.

Sergio Molina was in the back of the truck. He was paralyzed in the crash.

His family gave Michael permission to use their private moments together in a music video, and also gave us permission to share it.

"The first thing that was on my mind when I started writing it was Sergio," Michael said of the song "Stay," which features Sergio in the video.

The crash was in June, Michael wrote the song in one day, after spending many weeks by his friend's side.

"I was so stressed out, had so many mixed emotions, and had so much going on, that the only way I knew how to keep myself from imploding was to write it," he said. "This has made a huge impact on my life. Up until this point, I've never really had to deal with losing someone -- let alone a friend."

His emotions drove him to wrote another song this week, after the proceedings in juvenile court.

"I had gone and testified on behalf of Sergio and hearing everyone's testimony and all the police statements, I was real -- I was shocked," he said.

"I broke down and cried like a baby," he admitted.

Michael doesn't yet have a video for his newest piece, but the lyrics are powerful alone. They are all about Couch.

"Four people are dead and I can't even seen remorse. I ain't let out that much tears since my parents got divorced and they want rehab?" he sings.

"Can't you see the stuff you've done? Even if they let you walk, this will haunt you. You ain't won."

Michael said he was moved to write about Couch because of his personal experience inside the courtroom.

"We made eye contact one time and that was when I was coming off the stand, and it was almost for like a second or two," Michael explained. "You know you can tell a lot about someone when you look in their eyes."

"Instead of this remorseful, guilty look you'd expect someone to have, his stare was just kind of cold," he said. "Like he was either angry, or he just wasn't there."

Michael's newest song includes one line near the end where he names each victim who died. He didn't know them, but feels like he does, especially after hearing graphic testimony about their violent deaths.

"I know Shelby, I know Holly, and I feel for Breanna. And Brian, in my heart, I want y'all to know you died in honor."

"I mention their names because the love they gave and the memory people have of them will always live on," Michael said.

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Source: KVUE (Woodart, 12/16)

Teen sentenced to 10 years probation, rehab in 4 deaths

FORT WORTH — A Keller teenager who pleaded guilty to driving drunk and causing collisions that killed four people in June was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years probation.

State District Judge Jean Boyd ordered the 16-year-old to receive therapy at a long-term, in-patient facility. He will stay in Tarrant County juvenile detention until the juvenile probation department prepares a report about possible treatment programs.

If the teen violates the terms of his probation, he could be sent to prison for 10 years.

Prosecutors had asked that the youth be sentenced to 20 years in a state lockup.

Defense attorneys recommended a lengthy probationary term at a rehabilitation facility near Newport Beach, Calif., that can cost more than $450,000 a year. Attorneys said the teen’s parents would pay for the therapy.

The 16-year-old pleaded guilty last week to four counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault causing serious bodily injury. Killed were Breanna Mitchell of Lillian, whose car broke down the night of June 15 on Burleson-Retta Road; Hollie and Shelby Boyles, who lived nearby and had come outside to help Mitchell; and Burleson youth minister Brian Jennings, a passer-by who had also stopped to help.

The teen admitted to being drunk when he lost control of his pickup. He had seven passengers in his Ford F-350, was speeding, had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, plus traces of Valium in his system, according to earlier testimony.

The teen elected to have Boyd sentence him.

The Star-Telegram usually does not identify juvenile defendants.

Two teens riding in the bed of the teen’s pickup were critically injured. Solimon Mohmand had numerous broken bones and internal injuries. Sergio Molina remains paralyzed and communicates by blinking his eyes, according to testimony last week.

Scott Brown, an attorney who represented the teen with Reagan Wynn, said the teen could have been freed in two years if Boyd had sentenced him to 20 years.

“She fashioned a sentence that could have him under the thumb of the justice system for the next 10 years,” Brown said.

Richard Alpert, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case with Riley Shaw, said they were very disappointed with the verdict.

In his closing statement, Alpert said that if the teen continues to be insulated by his family’s wealth, as had happened before, he would be involved in another tragedy in the future.

“There can be no doubt that he will be in another courthouse one day blaming the lenient treatment he received here,” Alpert said.

In delivering the sentence, Boyd told the victims’ families in the packed courtroom that there was nothing she could do that would lessen their pain. And she told the teen that he, not his parents, is responsible for his actions.

Boyd said that she is familiar with programs available in the Texas juvenile justice system and is aware that he might not get the kind of intensive therapy in a state-run program that he could receive at the California facility suggested by his attorneys. Boyd said she had sentenced other teens to state programs but they never actually got into those programs.

Families’ reactions

Eric Boyles, who lost his wife and a daughter in the collision, said there was a lot of disappointment in the room where the victims’ families gathered after Boyd announced the sentence.

“Money always seems to keep [the teen] out of trouble,” Boyles said. “Ultimately today, I felt that money did prevail. If [he] had been any other youth, I feel like the circumstances would have been different.”

Marla Mitchell, whose daughter was killed, said: “He’s not free. None of us knows what God’s plan is. He has not escaped judgment. That is in the hands of a higher power.”

Shaunna Jennings, whose husband was killed, said her family had forgiven the teen, but that did not mean he should not be punished.

“You lived a life of privilege and entitlement, and my prayer is that it does not get you out of this,” Jennings said. “My fear is that it will get you out of this.”

Emotional age of 12

Earlier Tuesday, a psychologist testified that the teen essentially raised himself.

His parents had a volatile and co-dependent relationship, and had a contentious divorce, said Gary Miller, who began evaluating the teen on the day he was released from a hospital after the wreck.

The parents argued often, which the teen witnessed, Miller said.

The teen’s father “does not have relationships, he takes hostages,” Miller said. Miller described the mother as a desperate woman who used her son as a tool to get her husband to act the way she wanted.

The mother gave the teen things, Miller said. “Her mantra was that if it feels good, do it,” Miller said.

The teen’s intellectual age was 18, but his emotional age was 12, Miller told Boyd.

“The teen never learned to say that you’re sorry if you hurt someone,” Miller said. “If you hurt someone, you sent him money.”

Miller said if the teen can get the help that he needs, perhaps he can become a contributing member of society and make amends for the pain he caused so many families.

“This kid has been in a system that’s sick,” Miller said. “If he goes to jail, that’s just another sick system.”

As a child, he had to make adult decisions, Miller said. He had a motorcycle when he was 4 or 5 and was driving large pickups at 13, Miller said. The teen was a high school graduate at 16, but could not say where he went to school, where he went to church and had no friends, Miller said.

His parents never taught him the things that good parents teach children, Miller said.

“He never learned that sometimes you don’t get your way,” Miller said. “He had the cars and he had the money. He had freedoms that no young man would be able to handle.”

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Source: Star-Telegram (Mitchell, 12/13)

Ending drunk driving is goal of MADD's Jingle Bell 5K

AUSTIN -- In an attempt to remember those impacted in the kind of accident that can change lives forever, the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Jingle Bell 5K brought more than 600 runners and walkers to the Domain in Austin.

"This kind of event gives people the opportunity to heal," said Jaime Gutierrez, the Executive Director of MADD Texas. "It gives the opportunity for us to make the public aware of the dangers of drinking and driving."

MADD said that in 2011 between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, intoxicated driving was to blame for 931 deaths nationwide.

That's 931 too many, according to Mark Huber. He said these days, drinking and driving is no longer a mistake, it's a choice.

Huber called his 12-year-old daughter Jessica a "miracle." Jessica survived a horrific drunk driving accident in 2002, when her mother ran a red light on Highway 290 and collided with a truck. The then 19-month-old was hurt so badly, doctors told Huber they would not be able to save her.

Since the accident, Jessica had several facial reconstruction and brain surgeries, and there's still so much left to do.

"The nightmare never goes away," Mark Huber said. "11 years later, she still is going to require another facial reconstruction. That's titanium plates in her forehead, rebuilding her left cheekbone. It's financial. It's emotional. It's physical. The nightmare never goes away and it need not happen."

MADD helped Huber get Jessica's mother convicted of DWI.

As the bells worn by runners in the group's Jingle Bell 5K reminded racegoers of the holidays, Mark brought Jessica to the race to remind people that the choices they make can have a real impact; especially on the ones they love.

"It's not a matter of 'if', it's a matter of 'when'. It's going to happen to somebody you know. It could be in your own house. No child deserves this. No parent deserves to spend the holidays in the hospital with a child that need not be there," Huber said.

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Source: KHOU (Shively, 12/01)

Johnson & Johnson Said to Agree to $4 Billion Settlement Over Hip Implants

Johnson & Johnson has tentatively agreed to a settlement that could reach up to $4 billion to resolve thousands of lawsuits filed by patients injured by a flawed all-metal replacement hip, said two lawyers briefed on the plan.

The tentative plan, which must win court approval, represents one of the largest payouts for product liability claims involving a medical device.

A spokeswoman for the company’s DePuy Orthopaedics unit declined to comment on the possibility of a settlement. An announcement about the plan is expected in the coming days, the lawyers said.

The agreement will include those patients who have already been forced to have the device, known as the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R., removed and replaced with another artificial hip, said the lawyers who spoke about the agreement only on the condition of anonymity.

Under the deal, each patient would receive about $350,000 on average in compensation, though that figure will vary depending on factors like a patient’s age and medical condition.

The precise value of the settlement is unclear because lawyers for patients are still trying to estimate how many of the 12,000 related lawsuits involve patients who had a replacement. Lawyers believe that number may be 7,000 to 8,000 cases.

The final cost of the deal to Johnson & Johnson could rise, depending on how many claimants who received the device undergo replacement operations in the future, the lawyers said. Under the plan, patients who have not had a replacement would not receive compensation, the lawyers said.

The A.S.R. hip was sold by DePuy until mid-2010, when the company recalled it amid sharply rising early failure rates. The device, which had a metal ball and a metal cup, sheds metallic debris as it wears, generating particles that have damaged tissue in some patients or caused crippling injuries.

DePuy officials have long insisted that they acted appropriately in recalling the device when they did. However, internal company documents disclosed during the trial of a patient lawsuit this year showed that DePuy officials were long aware that the hip had a flawed design and was failing prematurely at a high rate.

Many artificial hips last 15 years or more before they wear out and need to be replaced. But by 2008, data from orthopedic databases outside the United States also showed that the A.S.R. was failing at high rates in patients after just a few years.

Internal DePuy projections estimate that it will fail in 40 percent of those patients in five years, a rate eight times higher than for many other hip devices.

It had been long anticipated that DePuy would try to settle the case. Of the two lawsuits that have gone to trial, the company lost one lawsuit and won the other one.

However, it was facing the start of several new trials around the country with the prospect of large damage awards. The outlines of a settlement proposal were reported Tuesday by Bloomberg News.

The hip was first sold by DePuy in 2003 outside the United States for use in an alternative hip replacement procedure called resurfacing. Two years later, DePuy started selling another version for use here in standard hip replacements that used the same cup component as the resurfacing device. Only the standard version was sold in the United States; both were sold outside the country.

About 93,000 patients received an A.S.R., about one-third of them in the United States.

Problems with the design first came to light in Australia and England just a few years after its marketing began. But DePuy officials insisted for years to surgeons who complained about that device that patient problems reflected their surgical technique rather than the implant’s design.

Last year, The New York Times reported that DePuy executives decided in 2009 to phase out the A.S.R. and sell existing inventories weeks after the Food and Drug Administration asked the company for more safety data about the implant.

The agency also told the company at that time that it was rejecting its efforts to sell the resurfacing version of the device in the United States because of concerns about “high concentration of metal ions” in the blood of patients who received it.

DePuy never disclosed the F.D.A. ruling to regulators in other countries, where it was still marketing the resurfacing version of the implant.

The head of DePuy’s orthopedic unit, Andrew Ekdahl, oversaw the introduction of the hip and was warned by a company consultant in 2008 that the implant appeared to have a design flaw, according to internal DePuy documents disclosed during a trial earlier this year.

When DePuy recalled the hip in 2010, it announced a program in which it offered to pay the medical costs of a replacement procedure.

All-metal replacement hips like the A.S.R. were once highly popular with orthopedic surgeons who believed the devices would last longer than traditional replacement devices made of plastic and metal. But the metal devices are rarely used anymore because of their high early failure rates.

While the settlement, if approved, would resolve much of the litigation against DePuy involving that device, it continues to face thousands of lawsuits involving another all-metal hip that it no longer sells called the Pinnacle.

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Source: The New York Times (Meieir, 11/12)

High School Senior Dies in Texting-Related Crash

A 17-year-old North Texas high school senior was killed Thursday when she crashed her car while texting, police said.

The accident happened at about 3 p.m. on West Exchange Parkway near Trinidad Lane in Allen.

Emily Stambaugh died when her car veered off the road, hit the curb and then struck a rock wall, Sgt. Jon Felty said. No other cars were involved in the crash.

"I just want everyone to know what a great person she was," said Stambaugh's boyfriend Brandon Moring. "She was an outgoing, bubbly person. She always knew how to make you laugh, smile, just everything."

Felty said the early results of the investigation show she was distracted by using her cellphone.

"It certainly appears she was texting with (her) boyfriend and sister at the time the accident occurred," he said.

The lesson is simple, Felty said.

"Don't text and drive," he said.

Moring said he preferred to talk about her and not the circumstances of the crash.

The accident couldn't have come at a worse time for the Stambaugh family.

Stambaugh recently tweeted that her father was in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant.

Allen High School's football team played Plano High School on Friday night, and friends wore white to honor her.

"I think the biggest lesson all teenagers can take from this is to show us how fragile life really is," said Allen senior Tracey Brannon, 17. "It was one of my friends who died, so it's really hard right now."

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Source: NBCDFW (Gordon, 11/08)

Texas accident near Terrell kills three team roping horses

In a serious vehicular accident on Wednesday afternoon, October 30, 2013, a truck hauling U.S. team roping horses in a horse trailer veered off the eastbound Spur 557 merge ramp of IH-20. The big truck continued off the highway, striking a light pole, and jackknifed. The truck rig finally came to a stop, remaining upright, but the horse trailer containing the horses overturned and finally ended up on its side. The large highway light pole fell across one of the lanes of traffic. During the accident, a passenger vehicle became involved in the accident, sustaining some damage but nothing major.

The truck was on its way to Alabama after the U.S. Team Roping Championships in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Loaded in the trailer were four roping horses.

The Terrell Police, Terrell Fire, and Terrell Volunteer Fire Departments as well as the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Office responded to the accident scene shortly before 1:00 p.m.

Emergency crews and road crews were able to remove one horse very quickly out of the wreckage. With the use of a tow truck, they managed to extricate the other three horses.

Injuries to the horses took the lives of two animals at the scene early on after the accident. One other horse had to be euthanized due to serious injuries. The fourth horse survived during and after the accident, and was emergency transported to the Equine Veterinary Services in Terrell, Texas, where it is holding its own at this time.

These horses were worth immense sentimental value to everyone involved with them. Reportedly the surviving horse is worth an estimated $200,000.

The driver of the truck survived with a head injury and was treated at the scene of the accident. According to the driver, there was some kind of a vibration sound just before the crash.

During and after the accident, traffic was snarled and backed up to FM148. On the eastbound side, traffic halted as well.

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Source: Examiner (Rucki, 11/01)

Toyota Plaintiffs Target Vehicle Electronics

The sudden-acceleration litigation against Toyota shifts to Oklahoma on Monday, as plaintiffs attorneys for the first time blame vehicle electronics for a crash that injured the driver and killed a front-seat passenger.

The first major trial over sudden acceleration focused on Toyota's failure to install a brake override safety system, not the electronics. A Los Angeles jury began deliberations on October 2 following two months of testimony.

The plaintiff in the Oklahoma case is Jean Bookout, who suffered internal bleeding and a broken ankle when her 2005 Camry crashed six years ago. Her friend, Barbara Schwarz, who was in the front seat, was killed.

Toyota has so far managed to settle litigation over sudden-acceleration defects. A $1.6 billion settlement, approved in July, resolved claims by consumers that their vehicles lost value. Another $25.5 million settlement resolved claims that shareholders lost money from the recalls. But trials now under way could influence the outcome of hundreds of remaining lawsuits, all of which target Toyota for injuries and deaths associated with accidents. Bookout filed her lawsuit in 2008, one year before Toyota began recalling nearly 10 million vehicles for defective floor mats and accelerator pedals linked to sudden acceleration. The case is a an outlier: It's not part of a coordinated proceeding, and lawyers have not selected it as a bellwether trial, defined as one whose outcome could guide the resolution of other cases pending against Toyota across the nation.

"Ms. Bookout doesn't have much memory…but she remembers the onset of the incident and remembers pumping her brakes, and the car kept going when she was slowing to get off the exit ramp," said Bookout's lawyer, Graham Esdale, a shareholder at Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles in Montgomery, Ala.

But Toyota has brought in a significant legal team including Bowman and Brooke, its lead national counsel in the sudden-acceleration cases. The team also includes J. Randolph Bibb Jr. of Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop in Nashville, Tenn., and James Jennings and Derrick Teague, senior shareholders of Jennings Cook & Teague in Oklahoma City.

Toyota spokeswoman Carly Schaffner issued a formal statement: "Multiple independent evaluations have confirmed the safety of Toyota's electronic throttle control systems, which are equipped with numerous, robust failsafe systems."

Toyota faces a formidable foe. In addition to Esdale, Beasley Allen's trial team includes senior member Jere Beasley and products liability shareholders Ben­jamin Baker and J. Cole Portis. The firm also is working with Larry Tawwater and Darren Tawwater of The Tawwater Law Firm in Oklahoma City.

The trial is expected to last less than three weeks. "It'll be fairly extensive," Esdale said. "Right now, our trial team is bigger than anyone we've sent to a court."

Bookout and Schwarz's estate intend to claim that Toyota was negligent and that the design of its 2005 Camry was defective, Esdale said. They also plan to ask jurors for punitive damages.

Some 20 experts are on tap, many of whom appeared during the first bellwether case over sudden acceleration to testify about braking systems. Others plan to testify about alleged defects in the vehicle's electronics software. Toyota has moved to exclude a report by one such plaintiffs expert, Michael Barr, whom plaintiffs lawyers indicated has identified a potential software glitch that could cause sudden acceleration. "Mr. Barr testified in his deposition that the Toyota software is defective, which results in unintended acceleration," Larry Tawwater wrote.

FIGHT OVER EXPERT

Toyota's motion and Barr's report were filed under seal, but Toyota has made a similar request to exclude Barr's findings in a case scheduled to go to trial on November 5 in the multidistrict litigation over sudden-acceleration defects against Toyota pending before U.S. District Judge James Selna in Santa Ana, Calif.

Beasley Allen has asked that additional members of its team have access to Toyota's proprietary software, which is housed in a secured facility in Maryland. Only two lawyers at the firm — Esdale and Baker — now have access to the source-code database.

"We filed a motion to allow lawyers trying the case access to it," Esdale said. "Clearly, they'll see and hear about it during the trial." Toyota's attorneys have opposed that request; access to its source code is governed by a stipulated protective order in the multidistrict litigation.

Oklahoma County District Court Judge Patricia Parrish issued a letter order on September 24 denying Toyota's motion as to Barr, but hasn't ruled on the source-code request. On October 1, she denied the plaintiffs' request to put James Lentz, head of Toyota's North American region and Toyota's highest ranking U.S. executive, on the stand. Lentz was forced to testify in person before jurors during the first trial.

Parrish also rejected a motion by Toyota to prevent plaintiffs lawyers from disclosing to the news media all "extrajudicial statements," especially highly sensitive proprietary information, that could prejudice a prospective jury pool.

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Source: Law Journal (Brondstad, 10/07)