Verdict in ’84 Death Is Reversed After Sentence Is Served

An appeals court Monday reversed the vehicular manslaughter conviction of a 65-year-old Van Nuys man who already has served his prison sentence for driving while intoxicated and fatally striking a North Hollywood bank executive.

A panel of justices from the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles threw out the guilty verdict for James Doster, saying that the jury was improperly instructed on how to decide if Doster’s driving constituted vehicular manslaughter.

Defense attorney Stuart J. Faber called the reversal “a hollow victory” for Doster, who was released from state prison last August after serving one year of a two-year sentence.

After a trial featuring emotional testimony by the victim’s wife, a Van Nuys Superior Court jury in July, 1985, convicted Doster in the death the previous December of Donald H. Smith, 57, who was crossing a busy North Hollywood street on his way to a Hanukkah bazaar when he was struck by Doster’s car.

Police said Doster was going 40 to 50 m.p.h. in the 35-m.p.h. zone when his car hit Smith, a vice president at First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles. Doster, then manager of a Santa Monica flower shop, left the accident, but returned 30 minutes later, according to a probation report prepared for the sentencing.

A police-administered test found Doster’s blood-alcohol level to be 0.06%, making him legally intoxicated but not legally drunk, which requires a 0.10% blood-alcohol level.

At his sentencing before Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard A. Adler in August, 1985, Doster made a tearful plea on his own behalf, saying, “I didn’t do it on purpose. I have suffered too.” But Adler imposed the prison term and a $10,000 fine.

In reversing the conviction, the appeals panel said jurors should have been told that they had to agree unanimously that Doster either was speeding, failed to yield the right of way or was negligent.

Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to retry the case, Deputy Atty. Gen. Roy C. Preminger said.