Teen’s Killing of Pilot Ruled ‘Excusable’ : Law: District attorney won’t prosecute Derreck Lawton in deadly Escondido confrontation with Myron Haag in his yard.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office ruled Friday that an Escondido teen-ager could not be held criminally responsible for the death of Myron (Mike) Haag, a popular youth sports coach and airline pilot who was killed during a confrontation in front of his Escondido home 2 1/2 months ago.

Haag, 54, died when he was shoved to the ground by 18-year-old Derreck Lawton, whom Haag had confronted because the teen-ager was urinating in his front yard after hanging out with friends nearby.

“This decision is insane,” Haag’s wife, Patricia, said. “I feel anger, hurt, frustration and confusion. I’m completely bewildered by the legal system.”

The only witnesses to the killing were two of Lawton’s companions and Patricia Haag, who heard angry words and came onto the scene midway through the confrontation, only to see her husband knocked to the ground.

Lawton and his companions turned themselves in to the Sheriff’s Department two days after the killing, afterk, they said, they heard the news that Haag had been killed.

In separate interviews with investigators, they said that Haag struck the first blow in the confrontation, and that Lawton lashed back with two blows, hitting Haag the second time and sending him backward onto the pavement, when he sustained his fatal injury.

Patricia Haag said that, if her husband did strike out first, she didn’t see it, arriving at the top of the couple’s driveway only in time to see her husband backing away from Lawton, and then falling backward onto the pavement from an apparent blow.

Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller, in a letter to Sheriff Jim Roache, said his agency would not prosecute Lawton because Haag’s death was “legally excusable.”

Homicide is excusable, Miller said, if “it was an accidental killing committed during sudden combat or in response to a sudden and sufficient provocation.”

Not only was Lawton not the original aggressor in the incident, Miller said, but no “undue or unfair advantage was taken” by Lawton, no dangerous or deadly weapon was used, the killing wasn’t accomplished in a cruel or unusual manner, and there was no evidence of gross negligence on Lawton’s part.

“We must conclude that the homicide of Myron (Mike) Haag was legally excusable,” Miller said.

Patricia Haag said Friday that she was “heartbroken” by the decision not to prosecute her husband’s killer.

“My husband was attacked in his own front yard. He did not pursue anyone, and he was a threat to no one,” she said. “The suspects admitted they were drinking enough to alter their behavior, and I find it incredible that the district attorney’s office can place so much accuracy on their testimony (to homicide investigators).

“Maybe justice has to come in a different manner, at a different time. I don’t have all the answers,” she said.

Dan Cronin, Lawton’s attorney, said he assumed “a lot of soul-searching must have gone on in this case” before prosecutors decided not to pursue the case.

“I’ve dealt with the district attorney’s office for almost 20 years, and I know the people involved in the decision-making process,” Cronin said. “I have never known them to be afraid to prosecute a case when a crime was committed.

“It would have been easy for them to throw this case into the court for a jury to decide, but that’s what their job is all about--to screen cases and determine where crimes were committed, and in what cases there were no crimes.”

Haag and his wife had lived in Escondido for 20 years, during which time he was a pilot for American Airlines. The couple were active in athletic booster programs at San Pasqual High School, and Haag was long involved in community youth sports programs.