Accident Safety & Reconstruction: December 2008 Archives

Massachusetts patrolman Stuart Merry will ask the State Supreme Court to rule that he not be retried on vehicular homicide charges and that his case be dismissed.  Merry was convicted in March 2008 in the death of Bonney Burns, 61, who was sitting in her parked car on Jan. 20, 2007 when Merry's cruiser crashed into her at more than 50 miles per hour. 

A Peabody District Court judge later set aside the verdict and granted Merry a new trial due to new evidence.  The prosecutor used a statement from a state police reconstruction expert concerning a crack in the windshield as evidence during his closing argument.  Merry’s lawyers argue that the evidence had not been discussed during the trial and that prosecutors intentionally withheld the statement.

For more, see TheSalemNewsOnline.

88-year-old Anne Harris has been awarded almost $100,000 after being struck on the head by a bulk food bin, which fell out of its receptacle.  Harris sued Ladner Save-On-Foods Store and Jim Pattison Ltd. for the accident which left her with permanent disabilities to her left wrist and shoulder.  The dispenser fell on her from the the top row of the supermarket's bulk food section.  The Vancouver Sun also writes:

An accident reconstruction and forensic engineering expert testified that he examined the bins in the supermarket following the accident and found that 17 of the 79 bins in the bulk food section were loose and not locked into place.