Intimidation claim rejected

SANDPOINT — A district judge is rejecting a vehicular manslaughter suspect’s claim that he was intimidated into talking to Idaho State Police following a deadly rollover crash in Clark Fork last year.

Zachary Bradshaw Palmer initially invoked his right remain silent when he was being interviewed by Trooper Terry Ford, but moments later agreed to speak with Ford as he was being led back to a cell.

Palmer, 20, testified at an evidence suppression hearing last month that Ford intimidated him into being questioned a second time. Palmer told the court that he submitted to the second interview because he was afraid not talking would only worsen his situation.

But Judge Steve Verby ruled on Thursday that there was no evidence to support the intimidation claim and found that Palmer voluntarily waived his right to remain silent.

“I do find through a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Palmer freely initiated the second interview,” Verby said.

During the second interview, Palmer admitted drinking alcohol on the morning of the Oct. 8, 2008, crash. Tyler James Pesce, an 18-year-old from Hope, was killed when the Chevrolet Corvette Palmer was driving overturned on River Road south of Clark Fork.

Although Ford read Palmer his Miranda rights in the first interview and reminded him of that fact in the second, Palmer’s defense counsel, Michael Waldrup, had questioned whether his client had been adequately advised of his right to remain silent.

Verby said that question might have had some traction if Palmer was too young or unintelligent to understand his rights, or if a significant period of time had elapsed between the two interviews. But Verby concluded none of those scenarios fit Palmer’s case.

In other developments in the case, Verby granted a defense request to use $3,000 in public funds to pay for a crash reconstruction expert to review the evidence and testify at trial on Palmer’s behalf.

Palmer’s five-day jury trial was scheduled to start next week, although it’s being pushed back to this spring because of various pretrial motions, including a defense motion which seeks to restrain the state’s use of blood evidence which indicates Palmer was legally drunk when the crash occurred.