The Washington Supreme Court has overturned an appeals court’s reversal of a Battle Ground man’s convictions for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault.
Dean Imokawa, 50, should begin serving his sentence in the coming weeks. He has remained out of custody during the appeals process, after posting an appeals bond at sentencing in February 2017.
Imokawa was sentenced to 26 months in prison after a Clark County Superior Court jury found him guilty of causing a deadly crash on state Highway 503.
According to court records and testimony at trial, Imokawa made an unsafe lane change on the Salmon Creek bridge, and his pickup clipped the front right corner of the vehicle he was passing. Both vehicles lost control, crossed the median and entered the southbound lanes, where a southbound Kia Sorento struck Imokawa’s pickup.
The April 2, 2015, crash resulted in the death of 86-year-old Eleanor Tapani of Battle Ground, a passenger in the Kia. She died from multiple blunt-force injuries. Her daughter, Linda Dallum of Battle Ground, who was driving, suffered multiple fractured ribs and fractures to her right ankle, foot and kneecap.
Imokawa appealed his convictions, however, arguing that the jury instructions presented at trial violated his right to due process. In July 2018, the Washington Court of Appeals agreed and sent his case back to Superior Court for further proceedings.
The issue stemmed from the trial court judge denying Imokawa’s request to include a specific jury instruction that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of an unforeseeable intervening cause of the deadly crash. At trial, his attorney, Steve Thayer, argued Imokawa had enough space to make the lane change safely, but the other driver sped up to prevent him from passing, causing the crash.
After the appeals court’s decision, the prosecution petitioned for review, “arguing that the jury was properly instructed on the burden of proof and that the error was harmless.”
“We believed that the (Washington) Court of Appeals got it wrong,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Kasey Vu said Thursday.
In an opinion issued Thursday, the high court ruled in the state’s favor and determined the jury was properly instructed.
Vu said the parties are now waiting for the mandate, and once it’s issued, the case will return to Superior Court for execution of the judgment.
Efforts to reach Thayer were unsuccessful.
