A man in prison for a double fatal Jersey City crash near the Holland Tunnel while driving under the influence has had two convictions vacated on appeal due to the way the judge instructed the jury on first-degree aggravated manslaughter charges.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
” … Defendant contends it was plain error for the judge not to provide instructions on reckless manslaughter as a lesser-included charge of aggravated manslaughter. The State responds the evidence clearly supported the jury’s verdict on aggravated manslaughter, and the judge was under no obligation to … charge reckless manslaughter,” Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division Judges Carmen Messano, Allison Accurso, and Joseph Marczyk said in a 39-page opinion.
“At oral argument before us, the State also asserted that any error was harmless, because the jury found defendant guilty of both aggravated manslaughter and the lesser included offense of vehicular homicide.”
On February 22nd, 2016, Scott Hahn exited the Holland Tunnel from New York City and drove southbound on the New Jersey Turnpike extension toward the toll booths at Interchange 14C in Jersey City, the court recalled.
Timothy O’Donnell was also proceeding southbound and stopped his car to obtain a toll ticket at the left-most toll booth and his five-year-old daughter, Bridget was in the backseat.
From there, Hahn’s car slammed into O’Donnell’s car, propelling it into oncoming traffic, where there was a second collision with an ambulance. O’Donnell was pronounced dead at the scene and his daughter died en route to the Jersey City Medical Center.
A Hudson County grand jury returned an indictment charging Hahn with two counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter (counts one and two), two counts of second-degree vehicular homicide, one count of third-degree possession of gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), and one count of third-degree possession of gamma-butyrolactone (GBL).
The appellate court disagreed with the state’s assertion that failing to instruct the jury on a reckless manslaughter charge was harmless, since it gave them the impression they had an “all-or-nothing decision” in front of them.
“A properly instructed jury would have understood that it did not face an all-or-nothing
decision on the aggravated manslaughter counts of the indictment, but rather it could acquit defendant of those charges and still find him guilty of causing the victims’ deaths by returning guilty verdicts, as already noted, as to the lesser included reckless manslaughter, or on the two counts of vehicular homicide as lesser-included offenses,” the ruling says.
” … The failure to explain the relationship between aggravated manslaughter caused by a vehicle and the offense of vehicular homicide left the jury with the false belief that the two charges were unrelated. The jury was not told that an available option was to acquit defendant of the greater charge and convict him of the lesser charge.”
Hahn was sentenced to 37 years and one day back on May 23rd, 2019 and is currently serving his time at the East Jersey State Prison in Rahway.
The aggravated manslaughter charges came with 16-year sentences each are now vacated, with the state having the option to have a new trial or make an application to enter judgements of conviction on counts three and four.
Hahn also challenged that his statement given to state police while in the hospital should be inadmissible since he wasn’t properly given notice of his right to counsel, as well as that the state’s psychopharmacologist and accident reconstructionist violated his right to due process and a fair trial, though those appeals were unsuccessful.
