JURY WON'T HEAR OF OFFICER'S OTHER CRASH

An inquest jury called in the death of a bicyclist who was struck by a
Seattle police car last winter won't learn that the officer got into
another on-duty traffic crash three months later, a King County District
Court judge ruled yesterday.

But Judge Darcy Goodman has yet to decide whether the jury will consider
that the bicyclist, Joel Silvesan, had a .05 blood-alcohol level and trace
amounts of marijuana in his system when he died, a fact the dead man's
family says would serve only to prejudice the jury against him.

"There's been a continual attempt by the Seattle Police Department to smear
Joel Silvesan," family attorney Chris Otorowski of Bainbridge Island said
in court yesterday.

Attorneys for Officer Christopher Hansen, who hit Silvesan's bicycle Feb.
27 on Aurora Avenue North, say that's not true.

"We obviously have a lot of compassion for his family and it's unfortunate
he died," said Hansen's attorney, Anne Bremner. "But the fact that he was
appreciably affected by alcohol when he died is relevant to this inquest
inquiry." A person with a .08 blood-alcohol level is considered legally
intoxicated.

Yesterday, Goodman said the inquest will begin Nov. 27. The panel is not
asked to find fault or assign blame for the 31-year-old's death, but simply
to determine the key facts.

Police say Hansen had his lights flashing as he drove north on Aurora
Avenue to back up another officer when Silvesan's bike rolled into the
intersection at North 90th Street and was hit. Silvesan's family and the
police disagree on who had the green light.

In May, Hansen, 24, was briefly taken off driving duties when his patrol
car hit a woman's car in another North Seattle intersection.

The Silvesan family's lawyer said the jury should consider that, but
Goodman yesterday said that accident is irrelevant to the immediate facts
of Silvesan's death.

The judge also barred the family's lawyer from calling an accident-
reconstruction expert to testify. Instead, the jury will hear only from the
police department's accident investigators.

Meantime, Hansen's lawyers said they expect a state toxicologist to tell
the jury that while a 0.05 blood-alcohol reading didn't make Silvesan
legally drunk, the alcohol would have had an affect on his bicycling
ability. And the small amount of marijuana may have added to that.
Otorowski said the blood tests show only that Silvesan smoked marijuana
within as many as two days of his death.

"Nobody will ever be able to know when he ingested it or whether it
impacted him," the attorney said.

The judge said she would likely allow the blood-test results if the
toxicologist says Silvesan would have been affected more than "minimally."