The Pennsylvania Superior Court has rejected the appeal of Byrnedale man Brandon Weidow, convicted in the 2012 drunk driving crash that took the life of his 23-year-old passenger.
Weidow, 28, was convicted in Elk County Court in December 2014 of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol and related offenses in the 2012 death of Savannah Straub. He was sentenced to four to nine years in prison.
Straub, a St. Marys resident, was killed after the car she was riding in careened off Route 255 in Byrnedale in the early morning hours of July 11, 2012. The vehicle hit a guardrail, tree and bridge before coming to rest and bursting into flames.
The first people to arrive at the scene said Weidow’s legs and feet were lodged in the driver’s side footwell, with his stomach on the center console, and his head and arms were across the front passenger seat. Straub had been ejected from the car, according to court records.
Weidow was pulled from the car by the two people who stopped, the records read.
The state troopers on the scene smelled alcohol on Weidow, and one of the two who pulled him from the car said she had been drinking with him and Straub prior to the crash, court records said.
Police charged Weidow as the driver, citing alcohol and speed as primary factors in the crash.
His first trial ended in a hung jury after the defense challenged evidence placing Weidow behind the wheel at the time. But a December retrial saw him convicted on all counts.
Weidow appealed the conviction on four grounds, alleging the search warrants contained insufficient information to be considered probable cause when his blood was taken; a 2014 search warrant to gather information from Weidow’s vehicle used old information; the court erred in allowing an accident reconstruction expert to testify as to his opinion as to who was driving the car; and the court erred by not acquitting him when he wasn’t proven to be the driver of the vehicle.
The court’s decision — which rejected all claims and upheld the verdict and prison sentence — was made a panel of three judges, Susan Gantman, Judith Olson and Senior Judge James Fitzgerald, and the memorandum was authored by Fitzgerald.
Explaining why the search warrants were upheld, Fitzgerald indicated Weidow was one of only two people found at the scene, he was positioned in the driver’s seat, and he had an odor of alcohol emanating from him, all of which was included in the probable cause for the warrant. “A common-sense view” of the warrant showed the medical records requested likely would have provided evidence of his intoxication, the memorandum read.
Regarding the second warrant, the memorandum read, even though the warrant came two years after the fatal crash, it was still relevant because the vehicle had been impounded throughout that time frame.
The third issue challenged testimony given by Cpl. Kurtis Rummel of the state police, an accident reconstruction specialist. The defense argued that it was outside of his expertise to give an opinion as to who was driving Weidow’s vehicle at the time of the crash. The Superior Court judges disagreed, citing Rummel’s specific training and that his opinion was based on Weidow’s injuries, medical records, damage to the vehicle, forensic mapping and the location where Weidow was found after the crash, the memorandum stated.
Calling the final argument “woefully underdeveloped,” the judges rejected it outright. The issue is thus considered waived, Fitzgerald indicated.
“Sufficient evidence supported the conclusion that (Weidow) was the driver of the vehicle at the time of the crash,” the memorandum read.
The decision was rendered on June 29.
Weidow remains incarcerated at State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill.
