Hung jury ends trial in Westlake teen traffic death

Insufficent evidence against Shakhov



The two-week trial of Agoura Hills resident Diana Shakhov ended in a deadlocked jury last week, stunning the family of 17-year-old Nicole Johnson, who was killed in an automobile accident that was said to be caused by Shakhov’s erratic driving.

Johnson, a student at Westlake High School, had just left track practice one afternoon in May 2003 and was stopped at a red light at Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Lakeview Canyon Road when Shakhov failed to slow her BMW and slammed into the teenager’s car.

Investigators said Shakhov was driving between 60 and 67 mph in a 45 mph zone when her car struck Johnson’s Volkswagen Jetta from behind. The impact thrust Johnson’s car across the intersection into a utility pole.

Police reportedly found no skid marks at the scene.

Shakhov, who was 31 at the time of the accident, was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of Soma, a narcotic painkiller. But the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on the intoxication charges and the judge declared a mistrial after two-and-a-half days of deliberations.

The jury’s vote was 9-3. Nine jurors agreed with the charges of manslaughter, while three insisted on manslaughter with gross negligence.

“We don’t believe that justice has been served here,” said Dane Johnson, Nicole’s father. “There is no question that (Shakhov) is guilty of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.”

Johnson said he remembers holding his daughter’s hand while the doctors removed the life support device that kept her alive.

“She was buried in her prom dress,” Johnson said.

Insufficient evidence

According to the jury, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Shakhov was impaired by the drug when the accident occurred.

Many drivers take prescription drugs, said Howard Price, Shakhov’s attorney. The district attorney’s claim that Shakhov was semi-conscious when the accident occurred could not be proven, Price said.

According to Price, a blood test showing Shakhov had Soma in her system wasn’t accurate.

“The lab results are so unreliable that no one can give them much weight,” Price said.

There isn’t enough knowledge about the medicine to indicate at what point a user becomes is impaired, he said.

But Johnson is convinced that Shakhov was highly intoxicated at the time of the accident.

“This lady was stoned out of her mind. She hit Nicole without braking at all,” Johnson said.

Toxicology results show a saturation figure so high that even if the results were off, she had enough drugs in her system to impair her driving, the girl’s father said.

According to one witness for the plaintiffs, Shakhov was highly impaired at the time of the accident.

About 10 witnesses said they saw Shakhov drive erratically for up to one mile before the collision. She was weaving across lanes of traffic with no attempts to stop or break before she hit the girl’s vehicle, Johnson said.

He claims the defense tried to make the jury sympathetic toward Shakhov, who revealed during the trial that she was pregnant.

“At least 40 to 50 percent of their case was designed to get sympathy for Shakhov and her personal problems,” Johnson said.

Price said Shakhov will suffer for the rest of her life because of the incident.

“She was severely injured and she has to go through her life knowing a sweet innocent girl died, although it wasn’t her fault,” Price said.

Nicole Johnson would have been a junior this year at UC Santa Cruz. She wanted to major in performing arts to become an actress.

Johnson also was a peer minister at her church and was involved with youth groups and in student government.

“This is a heartbreaking case,” Price said.

Both the defense and prosecution are expected to return to court Feb. 24 to discuss whether the case should go back to trial.


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