WA high court: victim of crash not DUI accomplice

A woman who was the sole survivor of a drunken driving crash that killed six people can't be considered an accomplice to drunken driving, even if she encouraged the driver's reckless behavior by videotaping the wild ride, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday,

In a 5-4 decision, the court said Washington law prevents a victim of a crime from being charged as an accomplice. The justices upheld a state Court of Appeals ruling.

Teresa Hedlund was kneeling in the front passenger seat of a Ford Escort, videotaping its occupants, when it slammed into a freeway support pillar in Auburn in 2001. Her fiance and five other people were killed, and she was severely injured.

On the video, the lone sober passenger pleads with the driver, 22-year-old Thomas Stewart, to stop, and just seconds before the crash, Stewart tries to scare the others by saying, "I'm going to kill us all right now." His blood-alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit.

"The Legislature has declared, 'A person is not an accomplice in a crime committed by another person if: (a) He is a victim of that crime,'" Justice Tom Chambers wrote.

Justice Barbara Madsen argued in her dissent that Hedlund should not be considered a victim of DUI because the crime of DUI - unlike, say, vehicular assault - does not require a victim.

She said the majority's opinion invited absurdity: "The getaway driver wounded in a robbery; the accomplice who is injured by the true victim defending himself against an assault; the accomplice injured by his crime partners in a dispute over 'loot' - just a few examples of those who will escape prosecution because they are 'victims' of the crime."

Chambers acknowledged that the ruling could lead to "strange results." For example, someone who provides fuel to an arsonist would be considered a victim, not an accomplice, if trapped in the fire. But he said it's up to the Legislature, not the court, to change the law.

And, he suggested, worries about the ruling's effects were overstated: "Accomplices are usually not injured by the very crimes they assist. For example, someone injured helping a bank robber escape (perhaps by gunfire or automobile accident) is not the victim of the robbery and can thus still be charged as an accomplice."

The state's crime victims compensation law bars people from collecting money if they were committing or trying to commit a felony at the time they were injured.

Hedlund was convicted in 2003 of being an accomplice to DUI and furnishing alcohol and tobacco to minors - the latter two charges based on video earlier that evening at Hedlund's home, which showed a 17-year-old who died in the crash drinking as well as Hedlund's 4-year-old daughter with a lit cigarette, dancing and baring her bottom for the camera.

The Supreme Court also reversed her conviction on the alcohol and tobacco counts, finding that the Auburn Municipal Court erred by admitting a 911 call from the crash scene into evidence. The caller stated repeated - but wrongly - that at least one victim had been decapitated, and the admission of that incorrect evidence was unfair to Hedlund, the court said.

"Finally, while we would not hesitate to condemn Hedlund's conduct as reprehensible and indeed criminal, neither do we find it absurd to say that she has been punished enough," Chambers added. "Her lack of judgment permitted the loss of the lives of her fiance as well as several friends, and she spent months rehabilitating from her own severe injuries; further legal penalties would be dwarfed by the suffering she has already endured."

Hedlund, who needed months to recover from head, spleen, liver and hip injuries, was sentenced to a day in jail, fined $350 - which she paid off by addressing Auburn High School assemblies - and ordered to write an apology letter to one victim's parents.

Joining Chambers were Justices Susan Owens, Mary E. Fairhurst, Richard B. Sanders and Debra L. Stephens. Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justices Charles W. Johnson and James M. Johnson signed Madsen's dissent.