Vehicular Manslaughter : Jury Convicts Driver in Man’s Freeway Death

A jury Thursday convicted a Huntington Beach man of drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter, rather than the more serious charge of murder, in the death of a UCLA student killed while working on his disabled car on the shoulder of the San Diego Freeway.

The jurors said that under current law they had no choice but to find that Jerry James York, 24, was so drunk that he could not have had the malice needed to be convicted of second-degree murder for killing Ha Quoc Vu, 25, on Jan. 21, 1984.

Supreme Court Decision

It was the third time in a year that the Orange County district attorney’s office had unsuccessfully tried to win a second-degree murder conviction of a drunk driver, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs, the prosecutor in the case.

In 1982, the California Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors could seek murder convictions in some drunk-driving deaths, and convictions subsequently have been won in Los Angeles County and Northern California.

Trial testimony showed that York had been drinking all the previous evening and on the morning of the accident, which occurred early on a Saturday afternoon south of the Seal Beach Boulevard freeway exit. He was roaring south down Interstate 405 swinging from the traffic lanes to the shoulder to pass other cars, while racing with a friend, police said.

After the accident, York’s blood-alcohol level was measured at 0.21, far above the 0.10 level at which drivers are considered legally drunk. Experts testified that York had consumed at least 17 cans of beer before striking Vu.

York’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Richard Aronson, acknowledged that “there’s no question that Jerry York was under the influence of alcohol” at the time of the accident, but said York was guilty only of manslaughter, not second-degree murder.

York could be sentenced to a maximum of eight years in prison as a result of the conviction, Aronson said. A conviction for second-degree murder could have brought a maximum 15 years-to-life sentence.