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Intersection Accident Nightmare in Arizona
In criminal cases, it is not uncommon for courts to order restitution along with the criminal sentencing. My Arizona bar newsletter contained a story about a lawyer who got the statutory law changed so he could represent his daughter in seeking criminal restitution for the death of his son-in-law. The case began with a 7 AM traffic accident at an intersection. The decedent, Jeffrey Roof, turned left across several lanes of traffic. The accused, Jeffrey Meyn, sped up to get through the intersection on, he claims, a yellow light. Meyn t-boned Roof’s automobile. There were no drugs or alcohol involved. Meyn stayed at the scene and was released by the officers who told him that he was not at fault.
The police continued to investigate. Meyn cooperated with the investigation even testifying before a grand jury. Meyn’s lawyer notified the prosecutor in writing that if he were going to be charged, Meyn would voluntarily turn himself in. Instead, the police used Meyn’s six-year-old son to lie to Meyn to get Meyn outside where the police swarmed him with weapons drawn, ordered him to his knees and handcuffed him, all apparently in front of the six year old.
The grand jury indicted Meyn on a manslaughter charge, which carries a sentence of seven to 15 years in prison. He took a plea bargain. He pleaded guilty to negligent homicide to avoid the possibility of a long prison sentence. The plea-bargain contained a provision stating that he could be held responsible for restitution to the victims in an amount not to exceed $1 million. Because of the plea-bargain, he served 13 months in prison.
Roof’s father-in-law is a lawyer. The father-in-law got the statute changed to permit him, instead of the prosecutor, to present the case for restitution. Restitution was preferable to a civil damages judgment, because restitution cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. A civil judgment can be discharged. The court awarded $960,000 in restitution.
Meyn lost a $200,000 a year job as a result of the incarceration. According to him, he has no prospects of making enough money to pay the judgment after feeding his family.
Here is a newspaper account of the situation.
It looks to me that Jeffrey Meyn is living a nightmare as a result of a simple intersection accident that had tragic consequences.
What are the lessons here? Never accept the plea-bargain if you believe you are innocent? Don’t drive to work in the morning? Never try to make the yellow?
Is what happened to Jeffrey Meyn a just result?
What about the behavior of the police after the prosecutor had been notified in writing that Meyn would turn himself in voluntarily? How can forcing a six-year-old to lie, resulting in the violent arrest of his father, ever be justified?
To me this is a horror story.
Published in Law
Something similar happened to my partner and I that involved a warrant. We were called to a domestic dispute. The husband and wife had not actually hit each other but just about every piece of furniture had been upended in the house. We asked the husband if he had a friend that he could spend the night with and he said yes. I stepped outside the house to run his name with the dispatcher. He had a warrant for auto theft. Unfortunately I had already told his little boy that he was just going to spend the night at a friends house.
I asked the husband to step outside and told him about the warrant and told him he was going to booking. I said let’s do your son a favor and we’ll walk you to our car without handcuffing you. Don’t try to run because we’ll have to take you to the ground and cuff you. I said your son has seen enough tonight, he doesn’t need to see that, so let’s do it this way for your son.
He cooperated and his son was spared seeing his dad cuffed.
I don’t want to minimize, as I said, but I would also be willing to give some benefit of the doubt. A letter to a prosecutor does not mean that the police had any knowledge of the man’s intent.
I don’t know about the kid. I’d be interested in hearing the whole story.
Interesting, isn’t it? A son shouldn’t have to see his parents upending furniture and fighting like that. I don’t know which parent is at fault, here (and I dislike laws that require arrests for DV calls), but the cuffing seems less distressing in the end…
That’s a sad and terrible thing for a child to witness. I think you handled that with sensitivity to everyone involved. And I think the child will recover from it–after all, he had nothing to do with it.
In the story in the original post, what the police did was ask the boy to help them trap his dad. The guilt that little boy will feel is terrible. The police should receive some training from psychologists, I think.
The other difference is the context. In your situation, the police were imposing order in a chaotic situation. In the case in the original post, the context was very calm, so the upset that the police caused was traumatic to begin with.
I wonder what the ratio of judges to constituency is nowadays. Maybe we need to up the ratio and then ask them to do their jobs.
There must be something more to this story than stated. It doesn’t make sense that this guy was charged under these facts.
This again is a case of the sad trend in our country, that of changing the law so someone can sue for damages. It was a sad day in our country when justice became equal to a dollar amount.
I suspect that the police determined that either he ran the red light and/or he was traveling at a very high rate of speed when the accident occurred.
That’s true if it’s a fender bender, but this was a fatality. Shut up and wait for a lawyer. Make no statements to the police or anyone else. Take emergency actions to help the injured, but do not discuss what happened. It cannot help you.
If you have to speed up to make the yellow, you should be braking instead. If you cannot brake for the yellow, but won’t clear at your current speed, you were already driving too fast.
It’s too glib to say not to take a plea bargain. It’s a gamble and the court system is designed to get something out of you no matter what. Rare is the person who is found innocent of everything.
What’s reprehensible is the change of the law.
The real lesson is that money equals power and that power is wielded in court frequently and with little shame.
Oh, and the police are allowed to lie to you. Unpleasant? Yes. Never trust them.
I faced the plea bargain scenario while serving in the Army. I could have pleaded guilty for something I didn’t do and receive an Article 15 ( like a misdemeanor ) or be tried at a Court Marshal ( for a felony ) that I did do but was of little consequence. I choose the Court Marshal. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and all changes were dropped with no record or penalties involved. It was scary but I learned from my father to do the right thing regardless of the consequences. It has worked so far and I am going on 72.
Playing devils advocate here:
The police want to get the person to be arrested out of the house. They drive by to see the situation. The 6yo is playing outside. They don’t want him out there when the stuff goes down, and they want the person outside. Tell him you want to talk to his daddy about his car. 2 birds with one stone.
Reading further, it would have been best to try to get him to turn himself in first.
The fact two cars were stopped at the yellow light when he accelerated through the intersection was good enough for the grand jury to find probable cause that he was negligent and responsible for the death.
Attorneys bathe constantly in the system, and the only redress available other than jail time is money. And the larger the amount, the bigger the win for the lawyer.
The FIL attorney’s choice to go after him for restitution in the criminal matter rather than filing a wrongful death case in civil court made it a life sentence. It was a win for him and his daughter even though the defendant cannot pay.
It is a true tragedy, a life for a life.
Maricopa County was the home of Sheriff Joe Arpiao; grandstanding and mendacity by the police during an arrest is not surprising.
Can restitution orders be subject to a governor’s pardon?
Too bad Jeffrey Meyn’s lawyer wasn’t his daddy. He may have done a better job for his client.
That’s right. Acknowledging that we have only the newspaper version of what happened, this wasn’t merely a “common traffic accident.” That would be a fender bender. This was someone who sped up to get thru an intersection and ended up killing someone. Experienced drivers know that there may very well be left turns coming at a light change, and that anyone making the left will have a hard time seeing you if there are multiple lanes. The guy making the left is going to go as soon as the light changes, and speeding up to get thru the intersection is a dangerous move. The timing just has to be a little off and you’ve t-boned him.
This conversation highlights the folly of trying to base a public policy discussion on an individual legal case.
So much of this story depends on details we don’t have. This starts with the traffic accident: there are plenty of scenarios consistent with the sparse information available which would place the blame squarely on Mr. Meyn. Similarly, there are plenty of scenarios which would justify luring him out of his home and handcuffing him with weapons drawn.
But there are also lots of scenarios consistent with the (again sparse) evidence which point in the exact opposite direction. So without those details, there’s really no point in passing judgment on anything but the decision to allow the victim’s father-in-law to represent his daughter (which is ridiculous in my opinion).
There’s a bigger point here, though: the Black Lives Matter movement is founded on immediately jumping to conclusions about the details of a case once they hear a few buzzwords: “unarmed black man”, “police officer”, “killed”, “XXX shots fired”. Let’s not prejudge a situation like that when we hear our own buzzwords. Rather, let’s admit that we just don’t know what the just outcome would be in this situation.
I strongly suspect that is the case. The article notes that “two cars had already stopped,” which enables us to at least make a pretty educated supposition. At best, it would appear that the light did not just turn yellow and that the driver likely accelerated his speed as a result. Regarding speed, note also that the impact was on the passenger side, yet still caused a fatality. While I’m somewhat bothered by the manner of arrest, I think that we can make a reasonable guess that this was (unfortunately) manslaughter.
This is out of my wheelhouse, but I’m wondering if Arizona recognizes contributory negligence in civil cases. If the left turn taken by the decedent was illegal as is indicated in the article, that might be another reason to seek criminal restitution.
I believe that Arizona is a comparative negligence state (or at least it was 25 years ago when I practiced law there). The jury would determine percentages of fault and allocate them to each party and to non-parties who may have been at fault. However, a restitution order is not subject to the civil liability rules.
I agree that there are plenty of details we do not have and that it is likely that there were aggravating factors not reported in the newspaper article. I can’t see any scenario that would justify traumatizing the innocent 6 year child — assuming that the reporter got the facts straight.
Restitution is court ordered (mostly) paying back of money owed a victim. It rarely gets paid in full. Debt slavery is probably a term used by someone who doesn’t believe he should have to pay back to his victim. But I am sure there are other definitions.
Edit: That would be money owed by a convicted criminal to his victim.
The Arizona Republic website describes the accident this way:
In another article, the Arizona Republic says this:
The fact that Roof was pulling out of a driveway into oncoming traffic is probably why this case is so controversial and why the police at the scene of the accident initially told Meyn that he was not at fault.
Roof was not coming from a side street. Meyn probably would seen him out of the corner of his eye if Roof had been.
I’m sure Meyn was going too fast, but I think Roof was too. And I also think the intersection was poorly designed. Why there was a curb cut at that spot I cannot imagine.
It was a terrible tragedy, but it wasn’t a criminal case from what I’ve been reading. I agree with police at the scene.
I have sympathy for Meyn. His entire life has been changed in the blink of an eye. But how do you feel about two cars already having stopped at the light when Meyn entered the intersection (assuming the report is correct)? That and the fact that a fatality occurred from a passenger side impact (Meyn’s speed?) have convinced me as much as possible based on what we know that manslaughter is probably appropriate. If Meyn acted with “reckless disregard” on his own (or something like that), Roof’s actions may not even be relevant.
And what makes you think we want them on this side? No, thanks.
In terms of the events as stated, I have some thoughts and questions. First is that in my state, Washington, you are liable to beng cited any time you are in the intersection when the light turns to red. So someone making a left turn in the intersection needs to be sure that he is not in the intersection when the light changes. Therefore, he should not enter it unless he has a clear field to make the turn. That said, seeing an approaching car one needs to use one’s judgment as to amount of time one has available to make the turn and clear the intersection. The fact that Meyn sped up would certainly have mitigated any judgment that Root might have made prior to beginning his turn.
Years ago I was involved in an accident in which I was hit in the rear quarter of my VW microbus with enough force to spin my bus around 4 times flattening all four tires. This occurred on a surface street with a speed limit of 35 MPH. I had entered the road from a stop sign, so I was cited for the accident. However, with photographic evidence of skid marks left by the car that hit me, I was able to convince a judge that the car was traveling way in excess of the speed limit and was not visible to me before I entered the intersection because of a turn in the road. Contn. below
The judge ruled in my favor held the other driver responsible for the accident, and said that the ticket was invalid.
Given that experience, I am inclined to believe that Meyn was very likely responsible for the accident even though he would normally be able to declare that he had the right of way. I do, however, strongly disagree with his method of arrest, and the insane award granted to the decendant’s family. What he did was a momentary slip in judgment, one anyone of us is very likely guilty of having made. That certainly doesn’t warrant destroying his ability to live his life and the destruction of his livelihood, nor treating him as a criminal.
I’m thinking it was Roof’s speed. Roof came out of the driveway (not a cross street) and was trying to quickly cross the two lanes of traffic in front him. If Roof had been right in front of Meyn, Meyn would have seen him in time to stop or at least swerve. Roof must have bolted out of that driveway. (Preventing this type of accident is what has motivated cities and towns across Massachusetts to move driveway curb cuts away from the intersections.)
I’m guessing that’s why the police officers at the scene sent Meyn home.
I have no doubt that Meyn was partly to blame, but I think Roof was too. It was what Massachusetts insurers call a 50/50 fault. They both tried to bolt through that intersection at the same moment.
I just don’t see a criminal case here.
This is a scary story on so many levels. I have a long commute, and have seen a lot of chances taken by drivers in a hurry, and taken a few chances myself. It’s just not worth it.
Drive safely out there everyone!
I guess we’ll agree to disagree here. I’m not convinced Roof’s speed is relevant in a side impact from Meyn’s vehicle, and entering an intersection after two cars have already stopped strikes me as reckless. Manslaughter is not that high a bar. I’d like to know more.