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CASE TYPE: consumer protection class action
CASE: Crawley v. Daimler Chrysler Corp., July Term 1990, No. 4900 (Ct. Common Pleas, Philadelphia) PLAINTIFFS' ATTORNEYS: Joseph C. Kohn and Martin J. D'Urso, of Philadelphia's Kohn, Swift & Graf PC; and Isaac H. Green Jr., of Philadelphia's Adrian Moody PC. DEFENSE ATTORNEYS: James Hourihan and Terri Reiskin, of Washington,
D.C's Hogan & Hartson L.L.P.
JURY VERDICT: $63.89 million

WHEN AN AIR BAG deploys during an accident, hot gases are released through vent holes in the bag. From 1988 through 1991, cars built by Chrysler Corp. contained air bags that had vents "directly at the hand grips on the steer­ing wheel," said plaintiffs' counsel Joseph C. Kohn. When the bags deployed, he said, some drivers sus­tained second- and third-degree burns on their hands, wrists and forearms. Chrysler moved the vents in later mod­els, he said, and the burn rate dropped
significantly. "But they never did any­thing to recall these air bags."

A consumer protection' class action was filed against Chrysler, charging breach of warranty, fraud and violations of the Pennsylvania consumer protection law. The plaintiffs contended that the air bags were defectively designed and that Chrysler had committed common-law fraud by not informing customers that burns could result from air-bag deploy­ment. The action did not include person­al injury claims, Mr. Kohn said: "Those claims are being litigated separately."

Chrysler contended that there was no design defect, noting that the air bags
worked as intended and that the hot gases are necessarily discharged upon deployment for the bags to work. But, on Feb. 18, a Philadelphia jury awarded the plaintiffs $730 each in compensatory damages and a total of $3.75 million in punitives. With 82,386 Chrysler cus­tomers in the class, said plaintiffs' attor­ney Martin J. D'Urso, the compensatory judgment amounts to $60.14 million. The plaintiffs want this trebled, as allowed under Pennsylvania consumer law. They are also seeking delay dam­ages and attorney fees, Mr. D'Urso said.

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3. ALFREDO DOMENECH de­scribes the nightmare that robbed him of his youth, and you can almost see the clouds form his face.

He recounts details of that night in May 1987, when his life caved in around him as if he is sifting through the rubble for a clue.

With him, it's more "Why?" than "Why me?­

I made a U-turn," he said in halting English he learned in prison. "I stopped at the light at Front and Dauphin and all these cops ran up and put their guns in our faces."

Domenech and his passenger later charged with the mur­der of Juan "Junoir” Matinez, a man neither had ever met, and procecuted on the shaky testimo­ny of a prostitute who viewed the 3 a.m. incident from her place of business on the sidewalk. 

Domenech, then 23, and Ivan Serrano, then 17, were found guilty of murdering Martinez, 22, in a trial conducted in a language they barely spoke by prosecutors who ignored the statement of a witness whose testimony could have cleared them.

And then the two spent the next 18 years serving a life sen­tence for a crime they didn't do. Serrano's memory of the ordeal mostly matches Domenech’s. But his reaction is not the same.

“I have different feelings from Alfredo," he says.  “For me, it's like a volcano inside. I want a psychiatrist. I need help. I do, too. I need help understanding how the criminal justice system could veer so far off course as to reach a result in which two men whose innocence now seems so obvious suffered such an injustice.  Why did police and prosecutors overlook the truth that was, literally, in their grasp and settle instead on an easy conviction?

Why did it take 18 years of heroic efforts by three commented lawyers – one of whom is the uncle of the murder victim - to topple a conviction that was as flimsy as a house of cards from the start?

And why, in a system in which police and prosecutors have ev­ery advantage, is it so easy to wrongly convict a man - and so hard to admit the error and make it right?

Serrano and Domenech were finally freed two months ago af­ter Ed McCann, chief of the
DA's homicide unit, took a hard look at the evident and knew he had to get them out.

"We've been to every chief of ho­micide in the last 18 years," said at­torney Reuben Rodriguez. His brother had raised the shooting victim, Martnez, as his own son.
"He's [McCann] the only one who actually took the time to read through the whole case file," Rodriguez said.

It's a file the size of a big-city phone book. And it tells how a night of drug-bingeing and thrill-seeking cost Serrano and Dome­nech their freedom.

They were on the prowl that night. Serrano was too high on cocaine to drive his car. Dome­nech took the wheel. 

Instead of taking him home,'' Domenech decided to do his young friend a favor and hook him up with a prostitute. They drove south on Front Street, along a well-known "stroll" where hookers solicited "dates."

They passed flashing blue and red lights near Dauphin Street. Uniformed pojice huddled over the spot where Martinez had been shot and killed moments earlier.

When Domenich made his fate­ful U-turn, police were already questioning Renee Thompson, an alleged prostitute who claimed to have witnessed the shooting.

As their car passed the scene a second time, Thompson pointed them out. Police moved in with guns drawn.

"I didn't know what was going on," Serrano recalls. "I didn't speak English.”

"One cop spoke Italian, but I didn't understand it."  He said police questioned them separately. "They hand­cuffed me to the chair and started hitting me,” he said.  “I didn’t know what that they were saying.”  “But I knew better than to sign something.”

Both men say Serrano was offered a deal before trial, if he would testify againist Domenich.  Nothing doing.

They went to court, instead, facing possible life sentences in a state where life means life.

At trial, Thompson, the only witness against them claimed she had seen Domenich fire shots from the passenger seat.

“Then another time, “ Domenich recalled, “she said the guy shot from the driver seat.”

Neither version matched the medical examiner's report, which indicated that the shots had been fired from within inches of Martinez and proba­bly by a standing gunman.
Residue tests on their hands showed no conclusive proof that either man had fired a gun.

"The D.A. argued the tests could be inconclusive if they had washed them hands before returning to the scene," said Jerome M. Brown, an attorney who handled their appeals for eight years, often at his own expense.

"The physical evidence didn't match the story at all," Brown said. "From where (Thompson] was supposedly standing, she couldn't have seen any­thing unless it all happened on the sidewalk.”

­Other people said they saw what hap­pened that night, including a witness whose identity we are protecting.  He was in custody on an unrelated charge by the time of the trial.  Prosecutors had even interviewed him.

“His story made much more sense to me,” recalled Rodriguez.  He had attend to trial with his brother and always suspected police had the wrong men.  He had even taken it upon himself to interview the witness in police custody.

The witness’ story also made sense to David McGlaughlin, who represented Domenich at trial. (McGlaughlin, now a prosecutor in Adams county, PA, says he has been “haunted” by the case ever since.)

But he was in mid-trial before prose­cutors revealed the identity of the oth­er eyewitnesses. To change his ap­proach to the defense at that point would have been a calculated risk. He decided against it.

"After 18 years of believing in their innocence," McGlaughlin told me, "it's a thrill beyond words to see truth prevail.
"
Brown had often worked without pay during the appeals process and, like Rodriguez, had believed enough to cover other costs of the  appeals out of, his own pocket. Still, all three lawyers credited McCann for finally seeing that justice was done. "After I saw the case file," McCann recalled, "I had questions about the strength of the case.

"We asked Jerry Brown to bring his clients to us. We interviewed one of the witnesses not called at trial.

"I passed this right up the line, and Arnie Gordon," who is D A. Lynne Abraham’s chief prosecutor, "asked for a lie detector test," McCann said. Both the witness and Domenech passed the polygraph.

Despite the resolution, two lives were put on hold during this sally through the justice system.
"I don't know how the jury did this to me," Domenech said sadly. "One week. The whole trial was a week.”
"When they let me go, they gave me fifty dollars. That was it.”

Serrano, who was serving time in Somerset, Pa., didn't even get the $50. "They just put me on a bus," Serra­no said. “I had to buy my own bus ticket. It took six hours to get home.”
They get none of the help re-entering society that parolees get.  Malik Aziz, from the Mayor's office of Community Service, found jobs for them at New Life Batteries, a Tacony firm that fells most of its jobs with ex-offenders.  And yes, they'll sue. But Adrian
Moody, an attorney who is pressing a civil case against the city on their behalf; says he can't begin to place a val­ue on what they've lost.
"You serve 18 years with no chance for parole, " Moody said, "the psychological setbacks, loss of association with family and friends, the untold an­guish.”
"I honestly don’t know what the fig­ure should be. But they-should be compensated substantially,"
How much to pay a man for the loss of his youth maybe one for the courts to decide.
But the question we may never be able to answer is how many more peo­ple have been victimized since May 1987 by a coldblooded killer who escaped punishment.
And how two innocent young men ended up, paying the price.