At a hearing Friday, defense attorney Joseph Amendola said wheelchair-bound DUI-crash victim Aaron Stidd "almost bumping into jurors" while exiting the courtroom should warrant a new trial for the man who struck him.
Former Penn State student Anthony Torsell, 21, was found guilty of drunkenly driving the car that fatally struck Richard Smith, 21, a visitor to State College, and critically injured former student Stidd, 21, at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 28, 2006, as they crossed Atherton Street at Beaver Avenue.
Amendola said he "took a lot of heat" for objecting to Stidd's presence in the courtroom the first day of Torsell's trial, equating Stidd's condition to that of a "dead body."
"I felt compassion," Amendola said Friday. "You'd have to be a totally cold-hearted person to not have compassion."
On Sept. 26, 2007, a Centre County jury convicted Torsell of vehicular homicide and aggravated assault while driving under the influence, and Centre County Judge Thomas Kistler sentenced him to nearly six years in prison.
"[Stidd's] family wanted him to have his day in court as well," Centre County Assistant District Attorney Steve Sloane said.
Keith McClellan, a Torsell family friend who was in the courtroom the first day of the trial, testified that he noticed the jury members' "furtive glances" toward Stidd as he was wheeled from the courtroom about 10 feet from the closest juror.
"I noticed that Aaron Stidd had been wheeled to the front. There were a number of people milling around him," McClellan said.
Referring to the accident as "a murder that didn't happen," Sloane said he believes the jury was burdened more with sympathy for Torsell, adding that in Stidd's hour in the courtroom, he "looked surprisingly well, relative to what he had been through."
Sloane also cited a note signed unanimously by jurors, asking Kistler to be lenient with Torsell's sentencing.
Amendola also cited Sloane's comments about the case of Katherine Applegate, who is charged with striking Michael Drauch, a then 18-year-old freshman, with her car while driving with a blood-alcohol content of .208.
Police said Drauch, who registered a blood-alcohol content of .24 at the time of the accident, stumbled into the street in front of the Meridian Apartment complex, 646 E. College Ave., in December 2006 just before being hit.
Unlike Torsell, Applegate's aggravated assault charges were dismissed at a preliminary hearing and not refiled by Sloane because a police reconstruction showed the pedestrian's drunkenness played a major role in the accident, according to court documents.
Amendola said the information Sloane presented at the Torsell trial about the Applegate case may have played a role in the jury's decision to find the defendant guilty.
Kistler gave the lawyers two weeks to file briefs before he makes a decision regarding a new trial.
