Attorney for homicide by vehicle suspect requests suppression of evidence in Washington case
The attorney for the college student charged with homicide by vehicle wants a judge to suppress evidence, claiming investigators weren’t specific enough when requesting search warrants.
Attorney David J. Shrager filed the motion in Washington County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of his client, Quinton Shaner, 22, of Elizabeth.
Charges of homicide by vehicle, recklessly endangering another person, careless driving and driving at an unsafe speed were filed against Shaner after an incident on Nov. 2, 2015, where Shaner was the driver of the vehicle involved in a one-vehicle collision that killed Mason Michael Reiff, 21, of Denver.
Shaner was allegedly driving at speeds in excess of 80 to 95 miles per hour on High Point Road in California. He lost control of his Ford Mustang on a sharp curve and skidded into a hillside.
The vehicle rolled multiple times and all four occupants were ejected.
Shaner suffered a massive leg injury, and two others in the vehicle were injured, police said.
Reiff was pronounced dead later that night at Allegheny General Hospital.
All other occupants in the car, including Shaner, were injured and were students at California University of Pennsylvania.
In his motion, Shrager argued that when investigators filed search warrants on Nov. 4 and Nov. 12, they weren’t specific enough in their requests to obtain evidence.
In the Nov. 4 search warrant, investigators listed in the box for the items to be searched for and seized, “inspection of a 1995 Ford Mustang” and listed on the page labeled for receipt and inventory was “steering wheel assembly” and “photos and inspection of vehicle.”
“For a warrant to be valid it must describe the place to be searched and items to be seized with specificity,” Shrager wrote in the motion.
“No reasonable officer would know by reading the warrant what specific items he was to search and seize.”
In the Nov. 12 warrant, investigators listed in the box for the items to be searched and seized statements from first responders from Brownsville Ambulance Service.
In the box where investigators are asked to provide a specific description, the investigators wrote it requested statements from four named ambulance-service employees.
Shrager wrote that, too, lacks information that would lead an independent magistrate to believe that the specific items to be search for and seized would produce evidence of a crime.
Shrager contended the remedy for those violations is suppression of the evidence produced from those searches.
A judge will make a decision on the motion at a later date.