DUI-related manslaughter trial set to begin
A Solano County Superior Court trial will get underway Thursday for a 52-year-old parolee charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, the result of a March 2019 motorcycle crash in Fairfield that killed his female passenger.
Stephen Duane Chiara, a previously convicted felon on parole at the time of the crash, is scheduled to face jurors in Department 11, Judge William J. Pendergast's courtroom, in the Justice Center in Fairfield. The trial will follow two days of pretrial motions, including a motion to suppress evidence obtained during a blood draw at NorthBay Medical Center in Fairfield.
Expected to last three weeks, the trial initially was set to begin Tuesday, but the attorneys in the case, Deputy Alternate Public Defedner Jennifer Proctor and Deputy District Attorney Ashley L. Ubois, argued the motions on Monday and Tuesday.
Additionally, official court records show that Ubois on Monday submitted an amended complaint of four counts, accusations of:ds
Vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated (a change from an earlier gross vehicular manslaughter charge).
DUI causing injury.
Driving with a blood-alcohol content of .08 or more.
The unlicensed driving of a motorcycle.
The revised criminal complaint also alleges that Chiara committed first-degree murder and was convicted on Jan. 22, 1993, in Humboldt County Superior Court, served time in state prison, and was on probation at the time of the March 27 crash that killed Mary “Max” Hadley.
On Monday, Ubois discussed with the judge about the release of further subpoenaed records from NorthBay Healthcare. Proctor objected, but Pendergast ordered the records' release, with copies given to the defense, according to court records. The judge also ordered a witness named Ruben Castellanos to return to court at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 16, but court records did not indicate why.
Tuesday's hearing centered around suppression of evidence related to the blood draw from Chiara's foot while he was being
treated at NorthBay for severe injuries incurred after the crash.
Proctor called Merriam Young, a nurse at Stanford University, to testify via video link.
As she spoke, Chiara, white-haired, clad in a striped jail jumpsuit and shackled to a wheelchair, listened and took notes with one free hand as Young told the court that drawing blood from any part of the body other than the arm may lead to risks, including blood clotting and even death. To draw blood from a person's foot, she added, requires a go-ahead from a physician, is generally considered medically inappropriate and not often done.
Proctor noted that Chiara did not agree to the blood draw, and the phlebotomist at NorthBay did not seek a physician's permission to make the draw.
During the afternoon session, Pendergast, citing Young's testimony, agreed that the blood draw was medically inappropriate and there were insufficient facts to support the prosecution's desire to admit the evidence. The judge said there was no testimony about why the blood could not have been drawn from an arm while Chiara was being treated for his injuries.
Chiara's trial follows a Jan. 24, 2020, preliminary hearing, when Pendergast ruled there was enough evidence to hold him for further arraignment on the several counts.
During the hearing, Chiara's attorney at the time, Deputy Public Defender Pamela Boskin, referring to testimony from California Highway Patrol Officer John Link, questioned whether her client showed negligence at the time of the crash.
She further argued that there was “nothing that correlated” — namely the alleged smell of alcohol coming from Chiara's clothing — to her client's blood-alcohol content, which was tested and found to be greater than the .08 legal limit, at 0.13.
Boskin also raised doubts about the two blood samples taken by a phlebotomist contracted with the Solano County District Attorney's Office, suggesting a mistake may have been made.
Additionally, she raised the possibility that another vehicle may have spooked Chiara at the time of the 8:45 p.m. crash, which occurred when he was driving a Harley-Davidson motorcycle east on Interstate 80 underneath the Green Valley Road overcrossing and crashed into a guard rail.
In response to Boskin's statements, then-Deputy District Attorney Susan A. Rados, who was leading the prosecution, said the case “rests on whether there was another car involved” that contributed to the motorcycle crash in some way.
There was “no evidence that another vehicle” may have been involved, she said, challenging Boskin, and alluded to statements made by a witness, Andrew Lind of Suisun City, whom Link interviewed after the crash.
A CHP report stated that “for unknown reasons, the driver was unable to maintain control of the motorcycle and both the driver and the female passenger were ejected from the motorcycle.”
According to the DA's original charging documents, Chiara was alleged to have been under the influence of both alcohol and an unspecified drug at the time of the crash.
Chiara and Hadley were taken to the NorthBay Medical Center with major injuries. She later died.
Hadley, identified as a resident of both Eureka and Fairfield, worked as a self-employed investigator in Humboldt County, according to her family.
Link testified that Chiara suffered a compound fracture in the crash and interviewed him at the hospital, where, he said, he smelled alcohol on the defendant.
The officer said Chiara told him that he was “traveling at freeway speed and someone cut him off.” Link also noted that Chiara said Hadley was his fiancee — a statement some of her relatives dispute.
Link also told Rados that a trained CHP investigator, after examining the motorcycle, determined that “there was nothing really (mechanically) wrong” with it that would lead to a crash.
Chiara was on parole at the time of the crash, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In 1991, he was arrested in connection with the death of a Fortuna woman, Mary Kesser, after he was found hiding with a sawed-off shotgun in a closet at a residence close to her home, according to a Eureka Times-Standard report. Chiara reportedly was hired by Kesser's husband, who sought to kill her for insurance money.
After completing his prison term, Chiara was paroled to the Bay Area in July 2018, according to the CDCR. He remains in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield without bail for a parole violation and $180,000 bail for the other charges.