Deadly semi crash trial delayed after judge excludes some evidence

A nearly two-year-old case was delayed just a day before trial after the judge excluded several pieces of evidence prosecutors wanted to use.

Judge Jeff Harris made the rulings late Monday afternoon in the case against Anthony West. The involuntary manslaughter case was set to go to trial on Tuesday morning, but prosecutors tell ABC 17 News that trial is now delayed.

West, of Jonesboro, Ga., is accused of ignoring warnings on westbound Interstate 70 in Boone County when he crashed his semi truck into 79-year-old Margaret Haile. The Missouri State Highway Patrol had put up signs warning about a crash farther west on the interstate, which snarled traffic that afternoon. The patrol claims West didn’t slow down when he passed those signs, eventually hitting Haile’s car and coming to a stop when he hit the back of another semi.

Judge Harris granted several motions in limine filed by West’s attorney Andrew Popplewell. That includes a motion to stop Boone County assistant prosecutor Jessica Caldera from using data the patrol gathered from West’s electronic computer module, or “black box.”

Harris ruled that it wasn’t clear whether or not West had consented to the patrol taking that data without a warrant. While patrol members testified that they did get consent at the hospital, West told the court that he only remembered telling them they could draw his blood and search his phone. Harris said there also were no “exigent circumstances” to prove the patrol could take it without a signed search warrant.

“There is apparently the possibility that ECM data or ‘black box’ data can be ‘written over’ or that it is continually ‘looped,’ which could constitute an exigent circumstance,” Harris wrote, “but there was insufficient evidence adduced at the hearing for the Court to conclude that such an occurrence was imminent in this case.”

The victim’s husband Alvin Haire told ABC 17 News he was disappointed in both the ruling and the delay.

“Who do you believe? Two state patrolmen or some guy that’s trying to keep from going to jail,” Haile said.

Haile, 83, said the delays in the case have made it hard to grieve. West had entered a guilty plea in December, but Judge Jodie Asel found a lack of “factual basis” for the guilty plea at sentencing, and reversed the decision.

“Sometimes, I just sit down and I just bust out crying,” Haile said about his wife. “I admit that, I just can’t control myself.”

Judge Harris also stopped the state from using a video of a “reconstruction” of I-70. Prosecutors planned to use the video to show jurors the placement of the warning signs on the interstate, according to online court records, but Judge Harris said it would have been “prejudicial.”

“Given that it essentially amounts to a reconstruction of the time frame preceding the incident, there is no evidence to indicate that traffic volume, traffic conditions, light, wind, time of day, and the like were substantially similar or identical to such conditions on the date of the incident,” Harris said.