DDN – Adan Garcia-Garcia has just stopped on the expressway.
The 40-year-old farmworker stepped out onto the shoulder of Interstate 5 before noticing a huge truck speeding toward the van containing his brother, nephew, and eight other comrades.
In one of the most terrible crashes in Marion County history, seven farmworkers were killed and three were critically injured. The collision on May 18, 2023, just south of Salem, highlighted the perils that agricultural workers endure when commuting to and from work.
The criminal trial of Lincoln C. Smith, the truck driver responsible for the fatal incident, began on Tuesday. “You will hear the witnesses in this case describe this scene as something they’ve never seen before or since,” said Marion County Deputy District Attorney Jessica Spooner during opening remarks.
There is no doubt that Smith, 53, of North Highlands, California, plowed his Freightliner semi-truck into a van carrying workers on the side of the road, crushing the van into another semi-truck.
Marion County prosecutors and Smith’s defense both agree that Smith used methamphetamine the day before the collision. However, Smith, who has been in jail for 20 months awaiting trial, may soon be released if all 12 jurors do not deem him intoxicated and driving carelessly at the time of the incident.
Smith has seven counts of second-degree manslaughter and three counts of third-degree assault. He has also been accused of driving dangerously and under the influence of drugs.
His attorneys said on Tuesday in Marion County Circuit Court that they will argue he was not inebriated at the time of the crash.
They will advocate for Smith to be cleared of all accusations or, at the very least, convicted of less serious offenses. If the jury finds Smith not guilty of manslaughter, they will consider whether to convict him of criminally negligent murder.
Tiffany Humphrey, the truck driver’s attorney, said jurors will hear from several police officers who described the crash as one of the worst they had ever seen.
“It was chaos. It was gruesome. It was sad. “It was very emotional,” she explained. They will contend that the intensity of the incident caused officers to misinterpret Smith’s perspiration, disorientation, and difficulty in focusing as indicators of intoxication.
This narrative of the circumstances leading up to the deadly incident was offered during Tuesday’s opening statements.
Smith lived near Sacramento and had been a truck driver for 18 years. Working five to six days a week, he lived primarily in the cab of his truck.
In the early hours of May 17, 2023, he tied up a trailer to his semi-truck and drove north. He met two hitchhikers along the road and they joined him on his journey to Oregon. Around 8 p.m., he found a place in Sutherland to park for the night.
“Before they got out of the truck, the three of them partied. “They did some drugs,” Humphrey explained. “Shortly thereafter, they went their separate ways.”
Smith then walked his dog, ate, and went to bed.
“Lincoln Smith does drugs on his own time,” Humphrey explained. “He has been doing them off and on for many, many years.” She informed jurors that during the trial, they would learn about how drug users develop tolerance.
Smith returned to the road the next morning, making three stops along the route. Humphrey stated that the proprietor of the auto parts business where he stopped will testify at the trial that Smith “appeared normal to him that day.”
Smith began to feel fatigued as he drove north on Interstate 5. He sought for a place to park and “call it a day,” Humphrey claimed.
By 2 p.m., the sun was shining and the roads had dried.
Smith knew a rest stop was nearby and switched lanes to leave. “He missed it because he fell asleep,” Humphrey explained. “When he woke up, he collided with the van that was parked on the side of the road.”
A home health nurse was driving away from a client’s residence when she saw a huge truck swerve to the side of the road, overcorrect into the left lane, and almost hit a Jeep in the left lane. She then saw the truck drive off the road again and keep going.
Meanwhile, 11 farmworkers were on their way to residences in Salem and Woodburn. Garcia-Garcia had just pulled the van carrying ten of his coworkers who had been working on a farm that day onto the side of the road.
He got out to check on a trailer attached to the back of the van when he noticed a huge truck approaching them from the side of the road, “going full-speed ahead,” Spooner said.
As he rushed out of the road, the truck collided with the back of the van. His brother, Josue Garcia-Garcia, 30, of Salem, and nephew, Luis E. Gomez-Reyes, 30, of Woodburn, were among those killed in the collision.
Three passengers, Jose Eduardo Solis Flores, Maria Flores-Martinez, and Ibis Torres-Rangel, were severely hurt and “continue to suffer physical injuries to this day,” Spooner stated. Following the incident, the Oregon State Police stated that Garcia-Garcia sustained “minor” physical injuries.
Smith was not severely harmed.
Smith told officers on the scene that he had neither used drugs or consumed alcohol.
An officer observed that his pupils were constricted and his eyes were bloodshot. Smith also claimed feeling disoriented and had trouble recalling details like his phone number or where he was earlier that day.
When the officer got on the scene, “he was thrust into the middle of this chaos,” Humphrey explained. Smith was sweating, dizzy, and unable to concentrate after the incident, she added, so the officer suspected he was “under the influence of something.”
However, a paramedic and a hospital nurse both determined that he “could not have been under the influence,” Humphrey said.
“A person under the influence shows various indicators. These symptoms cannot be faked. “These signs cannot be manipulated,” Humphrey explained. “A person can only be under the influence of a drug for so long.”
When the officer informed Smith in the hospital that seven people had died in the accident, Smith “was clearly and visibly devastated by this news and said he wished he had died too,” Humphrey claimed in a court filing. The officer discovered a vial in Smith’s pocket. Smith claimed it contained meth and admitted to using the substance a day earlier.
Spooner stated in court that hospital records indicated he tested positive for cocaine, meth, and fentanyl. “Mr. Smith chose to use methamphetamines the day before he was driving through the state of Oregon on I-5,” she told me. “He was driving at highway speeds on the side of the road.”
The trial, presided over by Marion County Circuit Judge Daniel Wren, is expected to end by February 4.
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