Prosecutors respond to wrong-way driver's appeal

No matter how drunk Martin Heidgen was when he drove the wrong way on the Meadowbrook Parkway in July 2005, crashing into a limousine and killing two people, he still committed murder.

That's what prosecutors argued in legal papers filed Friday in response to Heidgen's appeal of his October 2006 conviction for depraved-indifference murder.

In a 100-page argument filed with a state Appellate Division in Brooklyn, prosecutors disputed the points made in Heidgen's appeal one by one, confronting in particular the assertion that a driver can be too drunk to act depraved.

Under the law, a person is guilty of depraved-indifference murder when their conduct is "so wanton . . . so devoid of regard of the life or lives of others" that his behavior is as serious under the law as if he killed someone intentionally.

Prosecutors said Heidgen, even with a blood-alcohol level more than three times the legal limit, was acting depraved.

"He was charged with, and convicted of, depraved-indifference murder not because he was 'looking for victims,' but because he did not care whether he found victims," the prosecutors' response says.

Heidgen, who is serving an 18-years-to-life sentence in an upstate prison, had consumed the equivalent of more than 14 drinks when his truck slammed headfirst into a hired limousine carrying family members home from a wedding, prosecutors said at trial.

Limo driver Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, of Farmingdale, and flower girl Katie Flynn, 7, of Lido Beach, were killed instantly; Katie's mother, father, sister and grandparents were injured.

Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice made the murder charge against Heidgen and his trial a centerpiece of her war against drunken driving. Prosecutors did not comment on their response Friday.

"The arguments put forth by the DA are just excuses for errors made from the beginning to the end of this case," said attorney Jillian Harrington of Manhattan, who represents Heidgen in his appeal.

The case may give New York's higher courts their best chance yet to take on an issue much in dispute in serious drunken-driving cases: Whether a person can be so drunk that they are not able to form a state of mind to act depraved.

"It is time for the debate to end, and the court to be clear," said defense lawyer Brian Griffin of Garden City, who recently won an acquittal in a depraved-indifference assault case in Nassau.

Legally, a classic example of depraved-indifference murder is someone shooting into a crowd: The offender may not intend to kill anyone specific, but his behavior clearly shows that he does not care if someone dies as a result of his actions, said Richard Klein, a criminal law professor at Touro Law School.

Although prosecutors in Heidgen's case argued that a drunk person can act depraved, they also said that Heidgen knew what he was doing on the night of the crash.

Witnesses said he was not slurring his speech a short time before the crash. And he stayed on the road for 2 1/2 miles, even as other cars honked and flashed their lights to warn him that he was going the wrong way, they said.

In Heidgen's appeal, Harrington argued that, drunk or not, her client was not in a depraved state of mind. She quoted Stephen LaMagna, Heidgen's defense lawyer at trial, who said, "That's a kid who drank too much and was lost trying to get home."