People v. Hall CA4/3

I. INTRODUCTION

This is a murder case. Sunday morning, February 13, 2011, Mara Lynnes Steves was walking a dog, and arrived at the northeast corner of the intersection of Moulton Parkway and Nueva Vista in Laguna Niguel. William Hall was driving a large silver Ford Explorer heading north on Moulton. He ran a red light, hit a smaller green Toyota Forerunner in the intersection, then veered off in a northeasterly direction toward Mara, killing her. The Explorer slid on to the curved wall beyond Mara, then bounced off that wall and came to a rest on a small greenbelt about 20 feet north of the intersection. Hall was under the influence of a number of psychotropic drugs at the time, including Xanax. Hall wasn’t immediately arrested. A number of witnesses looking at the aftermath of the accident told police they thought the Explorer was turning right from Nueva Vista and was hit by the Forerunner as it ran the light going north on Moulton. That impression was a reasonable one given the way the two vehicles had ended up after the accident, with the Explorer on the greenbelt as if it had been turning right. So Hall was not immediately arrested. Only after careful reconstruction of the…