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State v. Colligan
Jury Rejects Claim That Man Was Negligent
BYLINE: Val Ellicott, Palm Beach Post
Staff Writer
DATE: 03-07-1995
PUBLICATION: The Palm Beach Post
EDITION: SECTION: Newspapers_&_Newswires
PAGE: 1B
A man accused of criminal recklessness for
taking his stepson on a fatal go-cart ride was
acquitted of manslaughter Monday.
John Colligan, who testified that the possibility
of an accident ``never entered my mind'' when
he wedged himself and 5-year-old Steven Colligan
into the go-cart, wept after the verdict was
read.
``I don't feel any differently about what happened
(the accident), but I'm glad to be free,'' Colligan
said outside the courtroom.
The verdict - not guilty of manslaughter by
culpable negligence - also triggered an outpouring
of emotion from Colligan's family and friends.
One man threw his head back and gasped with
relief, then glared in angry triumph at the
prosecution table and made an obscene gesture
at prosecutors Ellen Roberts and Pam Browne.
Roberts had blamed the accident on Colligan's
``outrageous'' disregard for his own condition
- she said he had been drinking beer the day
of the crash and was legally impaired - and
for the condition of the go-cart.
``You saw the go-cart, you saw what a piece
of junk it was,'' she told jurors in closing
arguments.
But jurors, who took two hours to reach the
verdict, were not convinced Colligan knew the
go-cart had bad brakes, a faulty throttle and
missing wheel bearings.
``There was a lot of conflicting testimony
between the two sides and we just felt the state
did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
he was guilty of culpable negligence,'' juror
Harvey Siebert said Monday.
Steven Colligan was killed Sept. 5, 1993, when
the go-cart careered into the back of a parked
truck, throwing the boy head-first into the
truck's bumper.
In tearful testimony Monday, Colligan, 46,
said the go-cart struck a bottle as he and his
stepson rounded a curve in the road of their
suburban West Palm Beach neighborhood. He said
he had consumed less than two beers over five
hours before the crash and had no idea the go-cart
was defective.
``I saw it (the bottle) just for a second,''
he said. ``I hit it, and now that go-cart was
heading right for that truck. There's nothing
I can do. It won't stop and it won't turn.''
Defense attorneys Chris Haddad and Jerry Sessions
portrayed Colligan as a loving stepfather who
agreed to take Steven for a ride only after
the boy pestered him repeatedly.
``When he sat in that go-cart and put his son
between his legs, he did so for one reason -
because he loved his son, not because he's a
criminal,'' Haddad told jurors.
Colligan's family and neighbors barely controlled
their resentment for the aggressive prosecution
during the four-day trial. On Monday, Circuit
Judge Virginia Gay Broome jailed Johnny Melvin,
who owned the go-cart, for several hours after
Melvin muttered an obscenity in response to
Roberts' repeated description of the cart as
``junk.''
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