BOERNE — Aidan Vitela, a 28-year-old motorist convicted in the death of a local teenage girl, will finally see time behind bars after the case spent years going back and forth in the state legal system.
He was 20 at the time of the crash more than seven years ago and was convicted of negligent homicide and assault causing bodily injury, according to officials.
Despite being handed a twoyear sentence at his initial trial years ago, Vitela has not seen a single day in prison since he immediately appealed to the higher court for a retrial, according to appellate court records.
The legal case reached its conclusion Oct. 19 after the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio denied his request for a retrial. The appellate process took longer than usual, granting Vitela his temporary free-man status after the higher court several times denied him a retrial. Every time the appellate court amended its opinion, Vitela was allowed another opportunity to seek new adjudication. This led to a three-year appeals process involving opinions and retrial requests.
He is now on the hook for the two-year sentence – the highest sentence he could receive for the state jail felony offense.
The case began March 12, 2015, as Vitela sped down Scenic Loop Road, clocking at 60 miles per hour on a sharp curve on the 30-mph road, according to black-box data presented at court. The vehicle — carrying two passengers with Vitela behind the wheel— flipped. Sydney Smith, 18, who was celebrating her birthday that day, died in the accident; then-16-year-old Boerne resident, Victoria Snell, suffered serious injuries.
The black-box data was the source of contention for Vitela, according to the opinion issued by the appellate court. In court records, the defendant said the data should have been suppressed during his trial, arguing investigators unlawfully seized the black box.
“Vitela argues that the warrant police used to seize his car’s black box was not based on probable cause,” the opinion reads.
“Consequently, he argues that his motion to suppress the evidence should have been granted. The state responds … that Vitela abandoned his car and had no standing to complain of any seizure related to it. Vitela points out that evidence of abandonment was developed during trial, not during the pretrial hearing on his motion to suppress.”
In the end, the court denied Vitela’s request for a retrial.
“We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting Vitela’s black box as evidence after determining that Vitela abandoned his car and lacked standing to challenge the evidence seized from it,” the court’s opinion reads.
“Likewise, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the state’s crash investigators to testify regarding their investigation and on their reading of the crash data from the black box. We also conclude that the evidence was legally sufficient to establish that Vitela caused Smith’s death when he drove at a high rate of speed into a curve, disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that he should have perceived, and that it was a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would have taken in his position.”
Kendall County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Nick Socias represented the state in the punishment phase in 2019, which included an update on injuries suffered by Snell and her recovery.
The state presented evidence of drinking and driving on the part of Vitale just nine months after the fatal accident and informed the court about another traffic mishap where Vitela put a driver in the hospital with permanent injuries.
Comment
Comments