The jury will wait until Friday to begin deliberation in the Daniel Greis trial.
Greis is charged with five counts of wanton murder in the death of a family on Staffordsburg Road in Independence in October.
The fate of Daniel Greis is expected to be in the hand of the jury Friday. Greis is charged with five counts of wanton murder in the deaths of a family in a crash on Staffordsburg Road in Independence in October (photos by Mark Hansel).
Circuit Judge Patricia Summe asked the jury Tuesday if they wanted to hear closing arguments and receive instructions after lunch, then possibly begin deliberations late in the day, or wait until Friday. Court will not be in session today or Thursday, due to a scheduling conflict.
The jury indicated they would prefer to wait and Summe set the trial to resume Friday morning.
Testimony concluded before noon Tuesday and the defense rested its case, but there were some significant developments.
Kenton Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders spent a good part of the morning challenging the testimony defense expert witness Neil Gilreath delivered Friday.
Gilreath said Friday his business, Focus investigations, was located on Buttermilk Crossings in Crescent Springs. On cross-examination from Sanders, Gilreath acknowledged that he worked from his home and that the Buttermilk Crossings address was a post office box.
Sanders also challenged the accuracy of an animation introduced by Gilreath to support Greis’s account of the events that took place on October 26.
Greis was driving his Honda Pilot SUV on the wrong side of Staffordsburg Road on October 26, at an estimated 86 miles per hour, when he struck a Honda Accord driven by Rodney Pollitt, Jr. head-on.
Pollitt, 26, his fiancé, Samantha Malohn, 27, and their three children, Halieann, 9, Brenden, 8, and Callie Pollitt, 6, were killed in the crash.
Greis had a blood alcohol content of .089 at the time of the crash and had marijuana in his system. He was traveling on a portion of Staffordsburg Road that is a no-passing zone at the time of the crash and for several seconds before it.
Greis maintains that he was attempting to pass another driver, Jesse Phillips, on Staffordsburg Road at the time of the accident.
Kenton Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders questions Neil Gilreath Tuesday. Gilreath is a defense witness called to provide expert testimony in the trial of Daniel Greis.
Both drivers acknowledge that Greis initially attempted to make a pass, but had to remain in his lane because another vehicle was approaching in the opposite direction. After that their testimony differs.
According to Greis’s testimony, Phillips kept him stuck in the wrong lane and would not let him pass, or get back behind him in the proper lane.
Phillips said Greis backed off, then sped up and tried to go around him as they approached a blind rise in the road.
It was as Greis’s vehicle crested the rise on the wrong side of the road that it became airborne and struck the Pollitt vehicle, killing everyone inside.
Greis’s attorney, Stacey Graus, introduced an animation Friday, developed by Gilreath, that he said recreated Greis’s account of the moments before the accident.
Based on that recreation, Gilreath said Greis would have had time to get back into the proper lane if Phillips had been traveling 55 or even 65 miles per hour.
Tuesday, Sanders called the accuracy of that animation into question, at one point referring to it as a “cartoon.”
Sanders pointed to earlier testimony from prosecution witnesses that a device in Greis’s car indicated he was driving at a speed of 86 miles per hour at the time of the crash. It also shows Greis did not hit his brakes during that time and actually had his gas pedal to the floor in the last three seconds before impact with the Pollitt vehicle.
Gilreath agreed that the device used to measure Greis’s speed was accurate and also that Phillips had no such device on his car, so there is no way of knowing how fast he was going in the seconds before the crash.
“When Mr. Greis made the decision to go 100 percent on the accelerator rather than 100 percent on the brake he took away whatever chance the Pollitts had of surviving this wreck didn’t he?” Sanders asked.
Daniel Greis, seated at right, waits Tuesday as attorneys discuss when jury deliberations will begin.
“Yes, I would say that was a very poor decision on his part,” Gilreath said.
Sanders also had Gilreath use a stopwatch to show jurors how much time Greis would have spent on the wrong side of the road at different speeds. He used Gilreath’s calculations at speeds ranging from 60 to 80 miles per hour, all of which were above the speed limit of 55 miles per hour on the road.
The times ranged from 13.14 seconds to 17.9 seconds and Sanders asked Gilreath if braking, instead of accelerating, might have resulted in a different outcome for the Pollitt family.
“If Mr. Greis had hit the brakes and stopped short of the crash scene, that would have given Mr. Pollitt at least a chance to avoid the collision, correct?” he asked Gilreath.
“Yes,” Gilreath said.
Gilreath also acknowledged that if Greis had applied the brakes, he would have had time to stop before the crash.
Sanders called two witnesses who were working on a home nearby. Both testified that just prior to the crash, they saw the Phillips pickup with Greis’s SUV close behind in the proper lane and already in the no-passing zone.
They testified that the vehicles went out of their line of sight before the crash.
Sanders final rebuttal witness was Kenton County Officer Curtis Bush, who testified earlier in the trial.
Bush testified that he went out to Visalia Road over the weekend and determined that the portion Greis traveled on the day of the crash, is a no passing zone as well.
The testimony is significant because Greis testified previously that he had passed a slow-moving vehicle on Visalia Road, prior to turning on to Staffordsburg Road.
On cross-examination Graus asked Bush if he knew whether the road was also a no-passing zone at the time of the crash in October. Bush said he did not.
A female motorist also stated under oath that Greis passed her and another vehicle at a high rate of speed in a no-passing zone prior to the crash that day.
The trial will resume Friday at 9 a.m. with closing arguments, followed by jury instructions and deliberation.
Judge Summe’s instructions could allow the jury to consider lesser included offenses.
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com
