Jury begins deliberations in Stanislaus deputy’s voluntary manslaughter trial
A San Joaquin County jury heard closing arguments Tuesday in the voluntary manslaughter trial of a Stanislaus County sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a Modesto woman in 2017 after she led deputies on a low-speed pursuit that ended just across the county line in Ripon.
The jury began its deliberations late Tuesday afternoon. The question for jurors is whether Deputy Justin Wall’s actions were reasonable and justified given the totality of the circumstances he faced and based on what he knew at the time when he fired his handgun four times at the Volkswagen Jetta being driving by Evin Olsen Yadegar. She was struck by two of the .45-caliber bullets.
Wall was one of several deputies who, on Feb. 26, 2017, responded to a roughly 3 a.m. report of a woman assaulting a security guard at a Salida hotel. A deputy spotted Yadegar, 46, driving a silver Volkswagen Jetta and pulled her over, but she drove away before the deputy got to her window. A slow-speed pursuit ensued.
It ended in a residential neighborhood in Ripon. Wall had tried to block Yadegar’s car with his patrol vehicle. Dashboard camera footage from a Ripon police officer parked behind the Jetta shows the car backing up about a foot and then pulling forward and around Wall’s vehicle.
Wall, 29, testified last week that he feared for the lives of the officer and the other deputies behind and near the Jetta and testified that he perceived the Jetta was backing up when he started shooting. He said he never perceived that it was moving forward.
San Joaquin County Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau told jurors the camera footage shows Wall’s perceptions based on his body’s actions. The prosecutor said Wall moved forward and with the Jetta as it slowly pulled away from the peace officers, and Wall pointed his arm with his handgun at the Jetta as he fired into it.
DA: deputy’s actions tell the story
Wall’s “perception is determined by what he did,” Himelblau said, “not what he remembered. (His) body would not move forward if he did not think the car was moving forward.”
Himelblau acknowledged that it “might be an ugly memory” to relive and run counter to why someone would become a peace officer. “I didn’t get into this to do that,” the prosecutor said. “But you did it. Everyone saw it.”
While the other peace officers said they were in fear of being injured or killed when the Jetta backed up, they knew the pursuit would continue once the Jetta pulled forward and around Wall’s vehicle, Himelblau said. For instance, he said, the dash camera shows one of the deputies heading back to his vehicle in order to continue the pursuit.
Wall’s attorney, Paul Goyette, told the jurors that they were in the courtroom because prosecutors “made a decision on the ‘You should have seen it rationale,’” which he said is used by those who are uninformed or want to ignore the reality of human perception and what happens to it during tense, rapidly evolving and chaotic circumstances.
Goyette said the dashboard footage fails to capture the complexity the peace officers faced that early morning. He cited a defense expert who testified about how perceptions change under difficult circumstances.
‘Can’t bureaucratize it’
He said Wall and the other officers were dealing with numerous red flags as they attempted a high-risk felony traffic stop. He said that included Yadegar’s failure to pull over earlier in the pursuit, driving through spike strips, not responding when a deputy gave her commands over a public address system as they drove along Highway 99 and not responding to 10 to 12 seconds of commands from officers when she was stopped in Ripon.
Goyette spoke of lawyers and bureaucrats who use 20-20 hindsight to pick apart the decisions others have to make to protect themselves and others. “You can’t bureaucratize it,” the defense attorney said. “Deputy Wall had to make a split-second decision.”
In his rebuttal argument, Himelblau told jurors that Goyette misstated his case. The prosecutor said he never argued Wall should have known the Jetta was driving forward, but rather that Wall actually knew it was moving forward based on his actions recorded on the dashboard camera.
Himelblau said in an interview that if convicted of voluntary manslaughter, Wall faces a sentence of three, six or 11 years. He added that probation also is a possibility.
‘Servant’s heart’
Wall testified last week that he grew up in a law enforcement family, his father was a deputy and he started his career as a Sheriff’s Department explorer at the age of 17. “I was raised with a servant’s heart,” he testified. “I felt it was the right career path for me.”
Wall began working as a deputy sheriff in 2013 and became a K9 handler in 2015. Out on bail, he remains employed by the Sheriff’s Department working in a modified, “unarmed support capacity,” according to a department spokesman.
Yadegar’s husband, Hanibal, said in a 2017 interview that his wife had a bipolar disorder and was undergoing a manic episode. He said it started about a couple of months before the incident with deputies after she had stopped taking her medication.
The Yadegars opened the Barkin’ Dog Grill in 2004 in Modesto. It has become a downtown institution in part because it has provided a venue for musicians, poets and other artists to perform and show their work.
Hanibal Yadegar sued Stanislaus County over his wife’s death; the lawsuit was settled for $7 million.
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 9:21 AM.
