Out on her daily walk, Mairi Morrison, 64, approached the wide exit of a gas station in suburban Maryland. To her left, a U.S. Postal Service van eased from the station and stopped.
The seconds that followed — Morrison stepped forward, the van drove ahead — led to a criminally negligent homicide charge this week against the driver of the van, Oscar Pedrozo, and to decidedly different views over whether the charge is warranted.
The Montgomery County Police Department said Friday that the letter carrier was wearing earbuds and listening to music at the time of the incident, and that after Morrison was struck, Pedrozo backed up the van with her still under it. Morrison was fatally injured.
Pedrozo’s attorney, Mark Anderson, said in an interview: “This was a tragic accident. It was not criminal conduct.”
At the scene, Pedrozo said he never saw the pedestrian, according to court filings. “I made a staggered stop,” he told a detective, saying he had looked left and right. “I didn’t see anybody.”
The incident occurred last summer in Kensington, just north of the Capital Beltway. On Wednesday, Pedrozo, 26, turned himself in to authorities and was released on bond. He is due in court again on May 14.
In Maryland, there are two types of vehicular homicide charges not requiring impairment, Anderson said. One is a felony, punishable by up to 10 years, requiring a driver to act in a “grossly negligent manner,” he said. The other is misdemeanor, punishable by up to three years, requiring the driver to act in a “criminally negligent manner,” Anderson said. In this case, Pedrozo faces that latter count, according to court records.
Morrison’s family members could not be reached for comment. In an obituary posted last year on Legacy.com, she is described as a lifelong resident of Garrett Park, Maryland, and a longtime attorney.
“Mairi was an avid walker, voracious reader, and intrepid traveler,” it reads. “Her travels are too many to list, but include Spain, Morocco, India, Egypt, Austria, Iceland, and of course, her dear Scotland. In addition to walking, she also enjoyed tennis and golf and the company of her adorable cats.”
Morrison graduated from Wellesley College, earned a law degree from the University of Baltimore and a PhD from the University of Oxford in England, it says. She taught law, practiced law and provided pro bono legal assistance until her death.
About 10:40 a.m., July 16, Morrison was walking south on a sidewalk adjacent to Connecticut Avenue. The busy stretch is filled with traffic, merging intersections, stores, restaurants and several gas stations. As Morrison approached a Mobile, Pedrozo was heading out, behind the wheel of a 2018 Ram Promaster cargo van, with an estimated weightof 2½ tons.
“Pedrozo stopped on the apron of the driveway,” a Montgomery County investigator would later write in court filings, citing a review of surveillance video. “Morrison attempted to cross in front of Pedrozo and was standing immediately right of the van when Pedrozo began to pull forward. Morrison reached her arm out to the van and attempted to take several steps backward.”
The investigator’s description continued:
“The right front corner of the USPS van struck Morrison as it turned right onto Connecticut Avenue, knocking Morrison to the ground.”
Video shows that the van continued forward for four seconds, stopped and backed up for another six seconds with Morrison under the van.
Pedrozo stayed at the scene and spoke with police. He said he heard a thump on the right of his van, and thought “someone smacked it or ran into me.”
“I had earbuds in, and I was listening to music,” he told the detective, according to court records. “But the volume was low and I could hear my surroundings.”
His attorney, Anderson, said Friday that Pedrozo is “deeply remorseful over what happened.”
Anderson said he would offer more specifics of Pedrozo’s defense as the case moves forward in court. The case would turn on whether his client acted in a “criminally negligent manner,” and he did not do that, Anderson said.
Crash investigators reconstruct scenes by mapping out the locations of skid marks, body placement, and other clues. When possible, they line this up with video and time durations. In this case, Detective Eli Dunham wrote in court filings: “Morrison began crossing the driveway apron approximately 2.65 seconds before Pedrozo began to pull forward. Morrison had crossed more than 4.72 feet of the driveway apron when Pedrozo began to pull forward.”
“Pedrozo had a duty to ‘yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian’ before emerging from the driveway,” Dunham wrote. “Pedrozo’s deliberate use of earphones in both ears interfered with his sense of hearing while he operated a vehicle in a heavy pedestrian and vehicle area, and created additional ‘unjustifiable risk’ that Pedrozo would be less aware, slower to perceive, and slower to respond to hazards in the surrounding environment.”
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