Drunk Driver Convicted in CHP Killing

VAN NUYS — A drunk driver whose car plowed into a group of stranded motorists, killing a California Highway Patrol officer who had come to their rescue, faces life in prison after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder Thursday.

Ramiro Rodriguez, 44, of San Fernando was also found guilty of three other felonies in the 1995 death of Bruce Thomas Hinman, an eight-year CHP officer and father of three.

The California Legislature has named the interchange of the Ventura and Hollywood freeways in Hinman’s memory.

“We were really happy,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Richman. “It was an important case for us, for the CHP, and his widow. Nothing will bring him back, but it’s as close as we can get to making things right.”

One juror said Rodriguez should have known better than to drink and drive.

“You’d have to be from another planet not to know that you shouldn’t drink and drive,” the juror said. “It’s as clear as the sun is hot on certain days and rain is wet.”

Another juror said the convincing evidence showed Rodriguez was unconcerned about drinking and driving.

“For me, it was the fact he bought more beer when he was already drunk,” the juror said.

Rodriguez was also convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence causing injury, and driving with a blood-alcohol level in excess of the legal limit of .08% causing injury.

Richman said his most difficult task was to prove that Rodriguez knew that his conduct was dangerous to life, but engaged in it despite that knowledge.

“My feeling with the verdicts? Deep disappointment with the murder conviction,” said Rodriguez’s court-appointed public defender, Dror Toister.

In other drunk-driving homicide cases, Toister said, many defendants demonstrated a pattern of misconduct despite previous intervention by authorities. Rodriguez had no prior offenses, Toister said.

“In almost all of them, there have been factors such as highly dangerous driving, a history of arrests or convictions for driving under the influence where the defendants received some sort of mandatory drinking-drivers education program. This was not one of them,” Toister said.

When Bruce Hinman was hit on Sept. 26, 1995, friends and colleagues said he was doing what he did best--helping people. Hinman had stopped to aid three people whose car had stalled.

As he tried to push the vehicle to safety, police said, Rodriguez swerved into the car, pinning Hinman underneath. Eleven days later, the officer died of his injuries.

Fellow officers later donated a monument to Hinman, a concrete bench and marble plaque bearing his name, at the CHP’s West Valley station.

In court Thursday, the enduring pain caused by the death was evident as Kimberlee Hinman wept following the verdicts and tearfully embraced jurors in the hallway. “Thank you, thank you all,” she said.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 6 before Superior Court Judge Darlene Schemp.