Bus-death verdict on 2 counts is delayed
After two days of testimony, a shuttle-bus driver charged in the death of a pedestrian outside Nationwide Children’s Hospital will have to wait more than two weeks to learn his fate.
Franklin County Municipal Judge Mark A. Hummer gave prosecution and defense attorneys a twoweek deadline to submit written arguments in the case of Karl S. Beem. The judge said he then will set a date for announcing his verdict.
The decision is in Hummer’s hands because Beem waived his right to a jury.
Beem, 62, is charged with vehicular homicide and vehicular manslaughter, both misdemeanors, for striking and killing David Newsom, 35, while operating a shuttle bus for the hospital on May 29, 2013.
The bus struck Newsom and Peter White, employees of the hospital’s genetics-research laboratory, from behind as they walked on Children’s Drive, a private road that runs through the hospital campus. Testimony established that they were in the road because a portion of the sidewalk was closed by a construction project. White survived and testified on Thursday for the prosecution.
Hummer found Beem guilty yesterday of failure to control, a minor misdemeanor, after hearing closing arguments. He then detailed for attorneys the issues that he wants them to address, in writing, about the more-serious misdemeanors. The judge wants them to explain how certain legal terms should be defined and applied in the case.
The vehicular-homicide charge, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail for a conviction, requires prosecutors to prove that Beem negligently caused the death by driving with “a substantial lack of due care.”
The vehicular-manslaughter charge, which could bring three months behind bars, accuses Beem of causing the death by committing the failureto-control offense.
Sgt. Brooke Wilson of the Columbus police accident-investigation unit testified that the charges were brought after a review of surveillance video that shows the shuttle bus veering suddenly to the right before striking both men and sideswiping a construction fence along the curb.
Beem, of Smallwood Drive on the Northwest Side, was driving about 21 mph on a sunny, dry morning with no drugs or alcohol in his system and no explanation for why he lost control. He did not testify.
Assistant City Attorney Cynthia Peterson said in her closing argument that Beem’s failure to control was the cause of Newsom’s death.
Defense attorney Sam Shamansky argued in his closing that the death resulted from a “gardenvariety, run-of-the-mill accident” that wouldn’t have occurred if the men hadn’t been walking in a roadway where they didn’t belong.