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Accused: I'm not to blame Manslaughter trial in DUII fatal starts By CHRIS BRISTOL A Medford man on trial this week for manslaughter claims he is not to blame for a fatal crash last year because authorities have it all wrong about who was driving. In opening statements Tuesday in Judge Ray White's courtroom, defense attorney Lorenzo Mejia told the jury that his client, Michael Duane Goyette, was indeed guilty of drunken driving -- but not at the time of the accident. Instead, Mejia said, 21-year-old Summer Frost was behind the wheel when Goyette's 1994 Toyota pickup collided with a one-ton Ford F350 more than three times its size. The young waitress, a friend of Goyette's then-fiancee, was killed almost instantly in the wreck. "The evidence is not there that he was driving at the time of the accident," Mejia told the jury. But prosecutor Debbie Minder said Frost only looked like she was behind the wheel because of the violence of the crash, which occurred April 18, 1998, at the intersection of Morrow Road and Poplar Drive in north Medford. Neither Goyette, 31, nor Frost was wearing a seat belt. The occupants of the Ford, which struck the Toyota on the passenger side, were not injured. Goyette is charged with second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment and first-degree criminal mischief. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum Measure 11 sentence of more than six years in prison. For now he is free on $500 bail. Minder, a Jackson County deputy district attorney, said the evidence would show that Frost's feet were wedged into carpeting on the passenger-side floorboard and that Goyette's feet were tangled in the pedals on the driver's side. Minder further said that witnesses saw Goyette climb behind the wheel of the Toyota just before the crash, that Goyette made incriminating statements at the scene and later at the hospital, and that an Oregon State Police accident reconstruction expert would testify Goyette was the driver. "Summer Frost was killed by a drunk driver," she said, blinking back tears. "The driver was three times the legal limit, and he ran a red light. "That driver was Mr. Goyette." Throughout the session Tuesday, the boyish-looking defendant appeared relaxed and upbeat -- in direct contrast to Frost's stern-faced sister and mother, who sat alone toward the back of the courtroom. According to Minder, the events that led up to the crash began to unfold even before Goyette had a single drink. Before the defendant left work, his fiancee and Frost had already been drinking for several hours with another man at a restaurant in Poplar Square. Minder told the jury that Goyette's fiancee picked him up around 4:30 p.m. and drove him back to Guadalajara Family Mexican Restaurant, where the foursome continued drinking for more than three hours. Shortly after 8 p.m., owner Jose Castro presented the group with a $175 bar bill but left a full bottle of 80-proof tequila on the table, she said. By the time he discovered his mistake 10 minutes later, the group had downed half the bottle. "They took advantage of it and started doing shots," she said. "Mr. Castro cut them off immediately." Minder said Castro tried in vain to call a cab, but Goyette and his friends insisted on driving. Goyette decided to give Frost a ride home, while his fiancee gave the other man a ride in her car. Minutes later, a stuporous Frost walked unannounced into a home behind the restaurant on Jubilant Avenue while Goyette urinated on the front lawn. The alarmed residents, who didn't know the two, immediately called 911, but Goyette and Frost took off before the police arrived. Goyette was driving, Minder said. The crash occurred only minutes later. In his statement, Mejia not only disputed that his client was the driver but also whether the Toyota ran the light at Morrow and Poplar. And he disputed statements Goyette made at the hospital -- "I didn't kill someone, did I?" -- as the ravings of a man who at the time was injured badly enough to be in intensive care. Said Mejia, "The case comes down to this: Who was driving, and who had the red light?" The trial is expected to last four days. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA