A 38-year-old man previously convicted of voluntary manslaughter was driving with methamphetamine and heroin in his system when he lost control of his car in Irvine and crashed, killing his 18-year-old niece, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday, while the defendant’s attorney said his client should not be convicted of murder.
Jim Christopher Rosado is charged with second-degree murder and driving under the influence of a drug causing injury, both felonies, with a sentencing enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury on a victim.
Rosado crashed his 2005 Honda Accord on June 13, 2021, killing his niece, Vanessa Ramirez.
Ramirez and her 19-year-old friend, Sarah Portillo, went to a party in Oceanside, but it ended up being “disappointing” so they called Rosado for a ride home, Deputy District Attorney Alyssa Staudinger said in her opening statement of the trial.
“They had a drink and smoked marijuana,” but decided not to ask a “visibly intoxicated” man at the party for a ride home. “Instead they got in touch with her uncle,” Staudinger said.
Rosado started driving from Bell to Oceanside and picked up the two at about 4:30 a.m.
Before waking up to first responders, the last moment Portillo recalled was the defendant stopping for gas, Staudinger said.
At about 5:25 a.m., multiple other motorists saw Rosado driving erratically on the northbound Santa Ana (5) Freeway in Irvine, Staudinger said. He appeared to be going about 90 mph and nearly rear-ended a Lexus and almost sideswiped another vehicle, the attorney added.
Rosado veered off the road with “little to no braking” and slammed into a sign, a guardrail, an electrical box and a pole before going airborne and ending up in trees and shrubbery at Culver Drive, Staudinger said.
Portillo broke a collarbone and Rosado escaped serious injury.
Ramirez was ejected from the backseat out the back window and died instantly, the prosecutor said.
A blood draw at a hospital at about 6 a.m. showed Rosado had 819 nanograms of methamphetamine, 116 nanograms of amphetamine and morphine, or heroin, in his system, Staudinger said.
The prosecutor pointed to advisements on a driver’s license application and paperwork from a plea bargain on a DUI charge in 2011 about the dangers of driving intoxicated to justify an upgraded charge from voluntary manslaughter to second-degree murder.
“It will be indisputable he loved Miss Ramirez,” Staudinger said of Rosado’s affection for his niece.
But the law supports an upgraded charge of murder because of the previous advisements about the dangers of DUI, Staudinger said.
Rosado was convicted on Aug. 28, 2013, in Los Angeles County Superior Court of voluntary manslaughter but jurors will not hear about that prior conviction. Jurors will hear testimony about how the victim kept in touch with Rosado while serving an 11-year prison sentence.
“He’s not a perfect man,” said Rosado’s attorney, Lee Stonum of the Alternate Defender’s Office.
“But he is not a murderer,” Stonum said. “He has his demons, struggles and made mistakes, but he’s not charged with being an imperfect man. He is being charged with being a murderer and he’s not.”
Stonum intends to prove that his client did not have the state of mind known in legal terms as implied malice, which is required to make a case for murder.
Rosado lived with his sister and her daughter as well as other family members in Bell.
“They were a tight-knit family. They love one another and the reason Jim was driving at 5:30 that morning was because Vanessa and her friend were an hour and a half away, drinking and stranded,” Stonum said.
The call in the middle of the night for a ride was a “surprise,” Stonum said.
Ramirez turned to him for help because she knew he would not lecture her and because he was dependable, Stonum said.
“He wanted to rescue her. He wanted to make certain she was safe,” Stonum said. “He did not save her and that’s the tragedy of this case.”
The defense attorney added, “There is a very natural feeling when someone dies to punish someone,” Stonum said. “But not every death is a murder and Jim Rosado is not a murderer.”
Even when Rosado was in prison the two “stayed close,” Stonum said.
There were not reports of erratic or poor driving until moments before Rosado lost control of the car, Stonum said. One witness reported it appeared Rosado fell asleep at the wheel, the defense attorney said.
None of the witnesses thought Rosado looked high at the crash scene, Stonum said.
The presence of drugs in the system “does not always mean impairment,” Stonum said.
An expert is also expected to testify that most cases of impaired driving end uneventfully, Stonum said.
“Driving impaired is not necessarily deliberately risking someone’s life,” Stonum said.
Ramirez’s mother is expected to testify for the defense, Stonum said. So will Ramirez’s best friend, Stonum said.
Rosado bears responsibility for the crash, but he should not be found guilty of second-degree murder, Stonum said.