A second-degree murder trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday for Raul Rosales Ramirez, a 23-year-old Canyon Country man accused of being responsible for the fatal crash that killed his friend, Orlando Gomez Sales, a 39-year-old man from Santa Clarita who was his passenger.
A jury was impaneled Monday in Department J of the San Fernando Courthouse, where the case is expected to be heard over the next week.
A pretrial brief included allegations from the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office that a then-20-year-old Ramirez confessed to Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in the hours after the fatal crash on Nov. 1, 2023.
Sworn statements from law enforcement claim that, using a digital device at the hospital, nearly three hours after the crash, deputies detected Ramirez had a blood-alcohol level of .152, nearly twice the legal limit.
Deputies also reported that while Ramirez was not legally old enough to purchase alcohol, he already had obtained a conviction for driving under the influence, which is why the more serious charge of murder, versus vehicular manslaughter, was presented to the prosecution.
The deputies who responded at 3:37 a.m. Nov. 1, 2023, to Bouquet Canyon Road, near Sutters Pointe Drive, said an Apple watch made the initial 911 notification.
The detectives who investigated the crash reported that they suspected driving at an unsafe speed to be the cause of the collision. They also alleged that they had footage of Ramirez driving at an unsafe speed, which was taken at a nearby gas station just prior to the crash.
They alleged that Ramirez’s speed caused him to lose control of the car while heading south on Bouquet Canyon Road. Ramirez’s car hit the west curb line, knocked over a street sign, then hit and uprooted a tree, impacted a wooden power pole, and came to rest on the west curb line of Bouquet Canyon Road.
After Ramirez was read his Miranda rights at the station, he was questioned by a deputy, who reported the following:
“The defendant admitted to consuming approximately five Modelo beers at his residence. He then drove with Mr. Sales to purchase another case of beer. While driving, he consumed another two beers prior to the collision,” according to the station’s report. The deputies who investigated the scene also reported finding an open bottle of Modelo in the car.
Hart High School Principal Jason d’Autrement also was called to court as a witness for the people in the case, as he was the head of the school when the campus hosted its “Every 15 Minutes” program in March 2019, when Ramirez was a student.
That was one of two bits of evidence in the pretrial brief introduced to indicate Ramirez should have known the dangers of drinking and driving.
The second was his previous DUI arrest. At 3:09 p.m. Dec. 3, 2022, Ruben Ramirez (not listed as any relation), who was also listed as a people’s witness, called 911 to report a DUI incident involving Raul Ramirez.
The witness reported seeing the defendant run several red lights, then crash into a parked car in the shopping center at Bouquet Canyon and Seco Canyon roads.
Raul Ramirez pleaded no contest to a driving under the influence charge in May 2023, when he was given a formal Watson advisement, according to the prosecution.
The legal notice, given by a law enforcement officer, ends with: “If you continue to drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, and, as a result of that driving, someone is killed, you can be charged with murder,” according to state law.
