SALT LAKE CITY — An attorney for former West Valley police detective Shaun Cowley doesn't think a "best guess" should send her client to prison for 15 years.

"These are assumptions. These are estimates. These are best guesses. People shouldn't go to prison for best guesses," an impassioned Lindsay Jarvis said outside the courtroom.

On Tuesday, during the second day of Cowley's three-day preliminary hearing on a charge of manslaughter for the 2012 fatal shooting of Danielle Willard, Cowley's defense team went on the offensive, heavily questioning the state's expert witnesses during cross-examination.

SLC homicide detective questioned

Defense attorney Paul Cassell spent most of the afternoon attempting to pick apart the opinion of Salt Lake police homicide detective Chris Kotrodimos, as well as questioning his qualifications for being an "expert" witness.

Kotrodimos, who was asked to review the Cowley shooting, determined that the officer was reckless and made a mistake using deadly force.

But during cross-examination, he admitted that his review was based on information provided to him solely by the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office and nothing that he collected on his own. At one point, Kotrodimos admitted he erred in attributing comments about what Cowley allegedly saw Willard doing inside the car prior to being shot.

"My area of expertise is general police standards," Kotrodimos said, noting that he looked at the totality of the situation and based his opinions on everyday police routines from officers around the state.

Cowley's defense team, however, said Kotrodimos is essentially a hired gun.

"He's not really qualified. He doesn't have the experience. But the D.A. could not find anyone else willing to step up to the plate to fill out the report, to come and to testify," Brandy Vega, a spokeswoman for the defense team, said outside the courtroom.

Among Kotrodimos' conclusions: Cowley's statements about what happened did not match the evidence collected, and Cowley was not hit and knocked over by Willard's car.

"I don't know of any physical evidence of Mr. Cowley being struck by that vehicle," Kotrodimos testified, adding that a more likely explanation is that Cowley was trying to get out of the way of the shots of his partner, detective Kevin Salmon.

"He saw incoming rounds, and he needed to take cover," Kotrodimos said. "I would have done the same thing. I would have dove to the ground and gotten the hell out of there."

Kotrodimos also said Cowley and Salmon's stop on Willard constituted what was essentially a traffic stop and he should have been carrying a police radio with him.

"This is a traffic stop. This is something you learn in the first couple of weeks in the academy. When you break it down, it's a traffic stop," Kotrodimos said.

When Cowley and Salmon approached Willard's vehicle, they both knew she was likely to try to drive away, Kotrodimos said. But at that time, Cowley was in the safest possible position — to the side of Willard's vehicle, he said. It was when Cowley left to get something from his truck to break open her window that he put himself in danger.

As for Cowley's assertion that he heard Willard's tires screeching, turned, recognized danger, drew his weapon and fired all in two seconds: "It's just not a likely scenario," Kotrodimos said.

Cowley's attorneys submitted to the court a signed statement from Unified Police Sgt. Jason Jones, another person asked to attend the meetings that involved Kotrodimos and the district attorney's office in early 2014.

Related:

Officer drew gun at Danielle Willard as 'lifesaving effort,' detective says

A three-day preliminary hearing for Shaun Cowley, the former West Valley police detective charged with manslaughter in the 2012 shooting death of Danielle Willard, began Monday in 3rd District Court.

"My position throughout the process was that I did not want to give my opinion on whether it was a justified shooting or unjustified shooting — and I certainly did not want to recommend for or against the filing of serious criminal charges," Jones wrote in his statement.

"In my 22 years of law enforcement, I had never seen something like this — a prosecutor was asking a law enforcement officer about what charges to file. … I found it odd."

When Gill filed the charge against Cowley in June, he announced that his decision was made after an investigative team — consisting of two Salt Lake police homicide detectives, two West Valley police homicide detectives, a Unified police detective and three prosecutors — studied the case.

"After the review of all their materials, and based upon the evidence that was available to them, it was the unanimous decision of the investigative team … that criminal charges are warranted in the shooting death of Danielle Willard," Gill said in June.

But in his signed statement, Jones said that wasn't true.

"I never recommended charges be filed in the Willard shooting matter," he wrote. "I was not present for any such vote. I certainly never voted for filing of any charges."

Forensic scientist questioned

During the first half of the day, Jarvis extensively questioned state witness Michael Haag, a forensic scientist who specializes in firearms reconstruction, about his report and 3-D, computer-generated graphic of the November 2012 shooting.

Haag's analysis of all six shots fired by Cowley and Salmon looked at the trajectory of each shot and the angles from which they were fired, and came up with an analysis of where each of the officers' weapons were positioned when each shot was fired and where the projectiles struck Willard and her car.

But of all the shots, the one with the least amount of confirmed data was the first and fatal shot fired by Cowley, which is "the reason we're all here," Jarvis said.

Haag conceded that his data did not show exactly where Cowley was positioned at the time his first shot was fired, or where Willard's head was inside the car, which could have affected his trajectory data.

Prosecutor Blake Nakamura said, however, that the totality of the situation has to be examined, including the testimony of all the state's witnesses, not just one person.

"Everybody likes to isolate things," Nakamura said, "because when you isolate it, you can put a different story to that isolated fact. What we try to do is put it to the totality of this information. … It's with that totality that you get an understanding of where that first shot comes in at."

But Jarvis said the totality of the situation is what will exonerate her client.

"When detective Cowley made that decision to fire, the vehicle was coming at him. They're trying to focus on the fact that at the time of the fatal shot, the vehicle was actually next to him. And what you'll see … is that it takes time for an officer to make that decision to fire," she said. "So you can't make the decision as to whether or not this behavior is reckless from the location of the side of the vehicle, when the decision to fire — which was at the time he felt in danger — the vehicle was coming at him."

Jarvis said Cowley had two seconds to make a decision that lasted the same amount of time. Email: preavy@deseretnews.com Twitter: DNewsCrimeTeam

Related topics