CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Day 3 of the jury trial for Palikna Tosie, charged with vehicular homicide, may have only brought two witnesses, but each had an abundance of information to share on the cause of the crash and who was at fault.
On April 8, 2021, at about 5:10 p.m., Palikna Tosie, 50, was driving over 80 mph down Fort Campbell Boulevard (a 45 mph zone) when he crashed with two other cars. One of vehicles flipped, and the driver, 61-year-old Kimberly Randolph, died at the scene. Tosie is charged with vehicular homicide, reckless driving, lack of due care and speeding. He pleaded guilty to speeding but maintained innocence on the other three counts.
On Thursday, the state rested its case after hearing testimony from its expert witness regarding traffic crash reconstruction and the investigation. But the defense brought in their own expert to weigh in.
Do you have right of way at 84 mph?
“The cause of this crash, the one thing that could have been easily changed, was Mr. Tosie’s speed,” Lt. Anderson Shelton, former Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT), told the jury Thursday morning. “(He) was traveling near excess of 40 mph of a posted speed limit, which, in the conditions on Fort Campbell Boulevard, at any given time, is reckless.”
Shelton worked with THP for 24 years before retiring last year as the West Tennessee CIRT commander. According to Shelton’s curriculum vitae, he has served as an expert witness for automobile crash reconstruction and investigation over 14 times and as an expert in crash data interpretation nine times.
According to the crash data retrieval (CDR) software pulled from Randolph’s Chevrolet Sonic, Shelton told the jury, between half a second to a second before the impact, the victim had only reached 14-15 mph. The CDR from Tosie’s Chevrolet Camaro identified that one second before the crash, Tosie was traveling 83.3 mph, and at half a second, his speed dropped to 71 mph.
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Shelton testified that drivers are constantly doing math, even if they don’t realize it, to study time and space between the steady flow of traffic and to commit to a decision: car gap analysis. Drivers on Fort Campbell Boulevard are expected to be driving at or around 45 mph, which drivers consider (whether they are aware or not) before they decide to initiate an action, such as turning across the opposing lanes of travel to get to a business.
Travis Meeks, Tosie’s attorney, emphasized to Shelton that pulling out in front of another driver with an established lane of travel is a crime, as all drivers are required to yield right of way to oncoming traffic. Shelton agreed that while, yes, pulling out into oncoming traffic and impeding travel lanes is a crime, it comes with a huge caveat.
“The question (Meeks asked) sounds like ‘You own the lane,’ to quote Buzz Lightyear, ‘to infinity and beyond,'” Shelton told the jury. “You don’t. Honestly, it’s going to be up to you guys to decide how much of that lane somebody owns.
“How much of the road in front of you do you have a right to? That’s the question we’ve got in front of us today,” Shelton said. “Someone made a decision, based on a 45 mph posted speed limit, to make what otherwise would be a lawful turn. And had Mr. Tosie been traveling the speed limit when that lawful turn occurred, none of us would be here today.
“I’d still be retired. I’d be sitting at the house. I’m not. I’m here testifying about someone driving 84 mph in a posted speed limit zone of 45 mph.”
FARO yields different opinion
Once the state rested its case, the defense began theirs by bringing in Brandon Bakker, traffic crash reconstruction specialist with VCE Investigative.
Bakker, a former law enforcement with California Highway Patrol, has investigated 2,000 traffic crash reconstructions in his career, leading VCE Investigative in 750. Though he has never testified as an expert witness before, Judge William Goodman advised, “There’s a first time for everything,” and allowed Bakker to be considered an expert witness.
Using a FARO 3D Laser Scanner, Bakker returned to the scene of the crash, took multiple scans of the site from different angles, and compiled his findings into a FARO program on his computer. Using information from the CDRs, crash reports, surveillance camera footage, and CPD reports, Bakker was able to reconstruct the moments leading up to the point of impact between the Camaro and the Sonic.
“I concluded that the black Camaro was close enough to cause an immediate hazard, and was close enough to the Sonic to where the movement of the Sonic entering the roadway from the driveway, that the Camaro was too close,” Bakker told the jury. “Therefore, the Sonic was placed in the path of the approaching Camaro.”
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According to Bakker’s findings, there would have been several windows of opportunity for the Sonic to see that the Camaro was approaching rapidly before the white truck left the roadway and obstructed the Sonic’s view.
During cross-examination, District Attorney Crystal Morgan asked Bakker to input some numbers into the FARO program. “Would the Camaro have been a danger if he was driving 45 mph?”
As Bakker ran these numbers and showed the court the results, the answer became clear to Morgan, who said, “So if the Camaro had done the speed limit, the Sonic could have navigated that turn?”
“That’s correct,” Bakker said. Morgan then asked him to show her the point of impact in his program again, as she displayed a picture of Randolph’s car flipped on its side with first responders surrounding it.
“Does that photo match what you’re telling this jury happened?” Morgan asked. Bakker explained that the program only shows the reconstruction of the vehicle’s first touch, but that the picture of the wrecked Sonic matched up his analysis.
Court concluded for the week and is set to resume Monday morning.
| PREVIOUSLY: 4 takeaways from vehicle homicide trial: No autopsy, selective memories, daughter’s testimony, crash data