Retrial in Pasco DUI Manslaughter

Shannon Stephen will be retried this week in Pasco County for the March 2006 deaths of Joseph Swiech and Sarah Gleason. Swiech and Gleason were walking home from the Chasco Fiesta festival when they were struck and killed by a passing pickup truck.

Stephen was charged with two counts of driving under the influence-manslaughter and one count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death. He faces up to 45 years in prison if found guilty of all counts.

The case first went to trial in June 2008 but ended in a mistrial. After deliberating for more than three hours, the original jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. (This circumstance is referred to as a “hung jury”.)

In the 2008 trial, prosecution witnesses testified they a man get out of a damaged Chevy Silverado about a mile from where Swiech and Gleason were struck. They testified that this man walked around with a cell phone to his ear and saw him hide behind a utility box when he heard sirens approaching.

Stephen was found in the truck with a blood-alcohol level of 0.24 percent, three times the level at which Florida law presumes a driver to be impaired.

One of the witnesses identified Stephen as the man who got out of the truck and walked around with a cell phone. Another witness, though, said only that Stephen fit the man’s body type.

The original defense argument suggested that one of Stephen’s friends was behind the wheel of the truck when it struck Swiech and Gleason but that the friend fled, leaving an intoxicated Stephen behind in the truck. They also argued that there were no cell phone records showing a call made from Stephen’s phone in the minutes after the collision.

According to the defense, though, one of Stephen’s friends did make numerous calls from a cell phone in those moments. Jim Wallace, the friend, called his wife and left her a voice mail saying, “Something happened. This is really important. Call me.”

At least one member of the original jury found that the prosecution had failed to meet their burden of proof – proof that Stephen committed the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. It is very likely that the cell phone records, coupled with the identification problems, suggested reasonable doubt to a portion of the 2008 jury. The parties will present their cases to a second Pasco County jury this week.