Witnesses led to quick guilty plea
The Gazette, Saratoga Springs, Local Section
Friday April 23, 2010
Written by Tatiana Zarnowski
A night custodian at the library and a man awakened in his apartment provided the eyewitness accounts of a fatal hit-and-run that caused Travis Carroll to take the quickest plea deal the district attorney had ever seen in [this] serious a case.
When Carroll, 23, of Ballston, pleaded guilty last week to felony manslaughter, he and his attorney were reacting to witness reports they had access to, gathered by the Saratoga County District Attorney's office. Those reports included statements from two sober witnesses who saw Carroll hit 27-year-old Ryan Rossley with his car at 4:25 a.m. March 18 on Henry Street and drive away.
District Attorney James A. Murphy III had planned to bring the evidence to the grand jury and ask for a second-degree murder charge, a more serious charge than the manslaughter to which Carroll admitted.
After a full night of St. Patrick's Day partying, most people who saw the fight were intoxicated or didn't see the fatal accident, Murphy said.
"We had a lot of people who kind of saw a piece of what the events were, but it was very unclear for a long time," said Murphy of the fight on Caroline Street and subsequent hit-and-run around the corner on Henry Street.
But at least two people who came forward after the hit-and-run made the news had a clear view of the events and weren't compromised by alcohol.
"There was kind of an amazing consistency between these two or three witnesses who obviously didn't know each other but obviously had a very similar story," Murphy said.
One witness was a night custodian at the Saratoga Springs Public Library which faces Henry Street, where Rossley lay critically injured after the crash. Rossley died more than 12 hours later at Albany Medical Center.
The other was a man in an apartment that overlooked the private parking lot on Henry Street. He woke up hearing a ruckus in the street and looked out the window in time to see what happened.
"The parking lot was illuminated enough by the streetlights so that he could see what he described," Murphy said.
That was the parking lot where Carroll parked illegally to confront a group of people who swore at him on Caroline Street when he honked his horn to try to get them out of the street. After the fight, during which Carroll's attorney said he was beaten and feared for his life, he jumped in his car with his father and a friend and took off, hitting Rossley as he left.
Murphy would not say exactly what the two witnesses saw that led to the speedy guilty plea because Carroll has not yet been sentenced and criminal charges against his friend are still being prosecuted.
The friend, convicted felon Jeffrey Hampshire, was later charged with tampering with evidence because authorities said he helped Carroll remove part of Carroll's broken windshield the day after the accident.
Carroll's guilty plea was the quickest felony plea Murphy had ever seen in a crime that resulted in death.
"I've never had a case that resolved within 30 days of the date of death of a felony plea. It's absolutely extraordinary," he said.
Murphy said Carroll's private attorney, Gerard Amedio, talked to prosecutor Jim Davis every day about the case.
"He analyzed the case," Murphy said of Amedio. "We analyzed the case. My sense is he may have been concerned about possibly a higher charge."
Manslaughter requires proof that the defendant acted with "depraved indifference to human life," Murphy said.
He said he believes Carroll is remorseful for what he did and commended the young man for sparing Rossley's family the additional heartbreak of having to appear before the grand jury and later at trial.
Amedio said Carroll is taking responsibility for his actions and didn't want to take a chance that he could get charged with more serious crime.
"It was a possibility that he could have been indicted on a higher charge," he said.
The attorney also credited Murphy's office for making witness statements accessible to him.
"James Murphy's office was very cooperative in reaching this conclusion," Amedio said.
Carroll's sentencing is schedules for June 25. He faces a possible sentence of five to 15 years in state prison.
Police are going to let the grand jury decide whether anyone else should be charged for taking part in the fight that morning, including someone who allegedly had a knife, said Police Chief Christopher Cole.
"There is a person that had a knife involved, and I think they're going to be looking at possible charges there," he said.
That morning, city Patrolman Chris Callahan was the first on the scene, a minute after the 4:29 a.m. call came in, Cole said.
Callahan is usually assigned to walking patrol, but Cole was not sure whether the officer arrived on foot or by car that night.
He defended police staffing levels, which have gotten criticism in the weeks since the incident.
"We had extra officers assigned that night," Cole said. Two of the downtown officers, included the mounted unit, were sent home before the hit-and-run by supervisors who determined they weren't needed.
