The Journal News from White Plains, New York • Page 4

4A Friday, January 4, 2008 The Journal News From Page One LoHud.com Federal court rejects Clark's retrial bid IS; 4ir ,7 A-UFS .7, J- js "I tilt ir It r- iv'r' vi. -f i rt'' I'll He turnea nght File photo by Kathy GardnerThe Journal News A tractor-trailer hauling asphalt was hit by a northbound train on April 3, 2007, at the Short Clove Road intersection with Route 9W in Haver-straw. The cargo bed of the truck fell on a passenger car also trying to turn right onto 9W. The truck driver was able to get the driver out of the car before the train hit his truck. Officials have been trying for years to eliminate another grade crossing in Haverstraw, on Short Clove Road, where a number of train-vehicle collisions have occurred.

The $20 million project is expected to begin In the summer. Wrecks pile, up at crossing Crash blamed on GPS mishap U.S. Supreme Court "We believe Judge Scheindlin was correct in her analysis," Friedman said. "We have to look at this decision and research possible issues for appeal or a rehearing." Michael Bongiorno, the former Rockland County district attorney who argued the case before the U.S. Court of Appeals in February, said yesterday's decision vindicated him, noting he said from the beginning that Scheindlin was wrong on the law and that her ruling would be reversed.

"But I am gratified more for the families of the murder victims," Bongiorno said. "This decision should bring closure to the Clark case. The families will not have to sit through a possible retrial." District Attorney Thomas Zugibe, who made the Clark case part of his campaign, said he, too, believed the Court of Appeals corrected a wrong decision. Zugibe said Scheindlin's decision seemingly jeopardized a person's right to choose legal counsel or defend him or herself. The decision put judges in a precarious position on self-counsel, which is a constitutional right "Clark got what she asked for when she decided to defend herself and then not take part," Zugibe said.

"Judge Scheindlin definitely was stretching on this decision." Zugibe said he found it highly unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court would consent to hear Clark's appeal. There is nothing novel or groundbreaking," he said. "There is nothing compelling for the court to review." More than a dozen people were sentenced to long prison terms as members of the revolutionary group that robbed banks and armored car trucks during the late 1970s into the 1980s. Clark attempted to follow her friend KathyBoudin, who was paroled from prison in 2003 after serving 23 years.

Boudin, another 1960s revolutionary, also was part of the getaway team with Gilbert, but pleaded guilty rather than go to trial. Gilbert is serving 75 years to life in prison. Another defendant in the case, Kawasi Balagoon, also known as Donald Weems, died in prison of AIDS in 1986. He was serving a sentence of 100 years to life. Paige's son, Michael, has been critical of the decision by Scheindlin.

Crowley witnessed Clark's antics at the trial in Goshen, where the case was moved. She and other family members attended. "I can remember being in the Goshen courtroom," Crowley said. "They had their opportunity. She made her choices.

You pay for your choices in life. I don't think any of them should ever be freed." Reach Steve Lieberman at sliebermlohud.com or 845-578-2443. 4( BRINKS, from 1A in the shooting deaths of Sgt Edward O'Grady, Officer Waverly "Chipper" Brown and Brinks security guard Peter Paige. They also were convicted of six first-degree robbery charges. O'Grady's sister, Mary Crowley of South Nyack, said yesterday that the appeals panel made 2008 a good year already.

"This is a wonderful start to the new year," Crowley said. "We're very pleased with this decision." The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday decisively overruled U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin, who ordered a new trial for Clark in September 2006. The Court of Appeals held that Clark's constitutional rights to a lawyer were not violated because she chose to both defend herself and boycott the proceedings.

The three-judge panel found Clark's claims that she was denied her Sixth Amendment rights to counsel were without merit "If Clark was without certain protections guaranteed by the Constitution, that was because she knowingly and intelligently exercised her constitutional right to make those choices," Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote. The three judges also opined that Clark used her radical revolutionary theology as a defense strategy, noting she called herself a "freedom fighter" and boycotted aspects of the trial. Clark, a 1960s Weather Underground radical who advocated violence against the government, drove a getaway car in the Brinks robbery of Oct 20, 1981. She was arrested that day with fellow radical David Gilbert and gunman Sam Brown after the car she was driving crashed into a wall on Broadway in Nyack during a police chase. The federal appeals panel ruled Clark missed her chance to appeal her convictions, despite a technical error by the Rockland District Attorney's Office.

The prosecutors tried to correct the error, but Scheindlin refused to accept their amended legal papers. "Indeed, Clark's chief justification for failing to appeal was her continued boycott of the judicial system not the need for extrinsic evidence," the panel ruled. The panel ruled Scheindlin should have dismissed Clark's appeal as time-barred under the law. "It was therefore error to hold that the state procedural rule was not 'adequate' to bar federal review of Clark's petition," the panel ruled. Clark lost her appeal in state courts in 2004.

Leon Friedman, one of Clark's appeals lawyers, said yesterday that Clark had been informed of the decision. He declined to discuss her reaction. Friedman said the defense team would review the decision before deciding whether to ask for a rehearing or appeal to the the nortbound tracks, and the became stuck the tracks. Dave Kennedy The Journal News Cars cross the Metro-North tracks at Green Lane in Bedford Hills at night. Green Lane timeline Dec.

9, 1996: A Greenburgh woman was killed when a train struck her car. April 5, 1998: A train struck a car. Nobody was injured. June 5, 1998: The crossing gate came down on a car. Nobody was Injured.

Aug. 29, 2000: A train struck a car. Nobody was injured. Sept. 20, 2004: A train struck an empty tractor-trailer, injuring 29 train passengers.

2: A train struck a car stuck on tracks, stranding Metro-North commuters for hours. Nobody was injured. abandoned the. minutes before it abandoned thex minutes before it struck bv a Metro- CROSSING, from 1A County are in the top 10 in terms of accidents. There was a fatal crash involving a freight train in June 2005 at the Erie Street crossing in Blauvelt and one in August 2003 at New Main Street in Haverstraw.

Officials have been trying for years to eliminate another grade crossing in Haverstraw, on Short Clove Road, where a number of train-vehicle collisions have occurred. The $20 million project is expected to begin in the summer. One of the worst crashes in Bedford Hills, in September 2004, injured 29 passengers and led to calls for eliminating that crossing. The accident involved a Colorado truck driver, illegally on the northbound parkway, who exited at Green Lane, got stuck at the crossing and abandoned the rig. Railroad officials supported plans to create a grade separation there after the last crash, Brucker said, but the state Department of Transportation decided not to rebuild the crossing because of the costs and the need to take property, agency spokeswoman Carol Breen said.

The traffic volume is very low in that area, so we deemed it wasn't feasible to put that kind of investment based on the crossing's safety record," she said. "We did add flashing safety lights." Although no one was hurt in Wednesday's crash, about 500 passengers were stranded for more than two hours, and 250 feet of the electrified third rail was damaged. One passenger said the impact of the crash was barely noticeable, although the car soon burst into flames that were visible through the train's windows. "I didn't really notice anything until the conductor very calmly said we struck the car," said Amy Lawlor, 30, of Patterson, an administrative assistant in Manhattan. "My first concern was whether anyone was in the car.

My second was the safety of people in the train because the automobile caught fire. First Haitian-American joins county Legislature Obo Bai was on Green Lane when his GPS told him to turn right, for his intended route, on the Saw Mill River Parkway, 0 Bai North Bill BecerraThe Journal News "It almost got a little hairy," she said. "The engineer moved the train down the tracks to get away from the burning car." Three trains out of Grand Central Terminal were canceled and 10 others delayed by up to 90 minutes. The damage was repaired by 2:30 a.m. yesterday.

Bai was ticketed after blocking the tracks and will be held liable for the damage and other costs of the crash, Brucker said. "I guarantee it will be well over $100,000," Brucker said. "The track, the train, and we had to hire buses and drivers." In addition to the crashes at the Green Lane crossing, the owner of a nearby auto-body shop recalled many other near-misses in the past three decades, when drivers turned onto the tracks, thinking they were entering the nearby Saw Mill River Parkway. One woman who got stuck with two children in the car was rescued by an auto-body worker who was able to drive Since 2005, 1,650 unauthorized trucks that had to be backed off Westchester County parkways, and a growing number of the out-of-state drivers have told police they were following GPS directions, Google Maps or other online navigation programs rather than signs at the parkway entrances. "People have been hitting bridges forever, but the GPS has been kind of a new wrinkle in the truck situation," said Kieran Oleary, a spokesman for the county police.

"It's definitely been a factor in recent years." Drivers unfamiliar with local roads have also gotten more disoriented as Hertz and other rental car companies have begun offering GPS devices with their vehicles. Although, the rented 2006 Ford Focus destroyed Wednesday night was not outfitted with one, said U-Save Car Truck Rental in New Windsor, N.Y. During a business trip to Utah last year, Hawthorne resident JoAnn Brereton said her GPS device would have left her stranded in the desert The system "happily chimed, "You have arrived' about 13 miles east of the real location of the company, in the middle of the Utah desert alongside the aptly named Stinky Springs," she said. "The GPS tracking difficulty is (a) well-known inside joke there. My guess is that somewhere in the desert near Stinky Springs, Utah, there may be the bleached bones of lost businessmen and women who got lost looking for this partic- Bai Mr car onto tram car on car was I CM As GPS use rises, so commuter train.

the car free, he said yesterday. "Over the last 10 years, the accidents that have happened and the ones that could have been make you think," said Greg Coccaro president of North State Custom. Still, the intersection of the road and the train tracks and the nearby parkway are about as well-marked and clear as any intersection in northern Westchester, he said. "You have to almost intentionally leave your car on the tracks in order for something to happen," he said. "I can understand if you are going across the tracks and the car stalls." Brucker agreed.

He said the railroad preferred overpasses, but he defended grade crossings as safe for alert, competent drivers. "All of these accidents are so simply avoidable," he said. "Don't drive around the gates, obey the signals, do not be in the line of traffic where you are stopped on the tracks. Just look where you're driving. Use your eyes.

Be aware." do related "GPS is no substitute for common sense, obviously. We do post warnings, and those warnings do admonish drivers to obey all rules of the road and follow all sips" Ted Gartner, a spokesman for Garmin, the largest GPS seller in North America ular company." About 15 percent of vehicles are equipped with GPS devices, up from 5 percent a few years ago, said Ted Gartner, a spokesman for Garmin, the largest GPS seller in North America. Those devices come with warnings, he said. "It's horrible this man was in an accident," Gartner said of the Bedford Hills crash, but he added: "GPS is no substitute for common sense, obviously. We do post warnings, and those warnings do admonish drivers to obey all rules of the road and follow all signs." The Silvermans of Hastings said they have no trouble using their Garmin in the United States but found it extremely difficult to use on foreign roads and pedestrian-only historic districts in Europe in the fall.

"We found ourselves numerous times in different villages and cities, plugging in the hotel ad Jan. the Yesterday, Peter DiChiara, Mount Kisco's deputy mayor, renewed calls for a new crossing. "This is one of many accidents at the Green Lane train crossing," he said. "The MTA and the DOT should take the time to examine the intersection and engineer a solution that would create a bridge over the train tracks and a north-south exit and entrance onto the Saw Mill parkway." He said there is a telephone number posted at the crossing that motorists should call if they get stuck on the tracks. Breen, from the DOT, said the agency would look at the crossing if requested by the municipality but didn't think Wednesday's accident would change its assessment given that no one was hurt Staff writers Rob Ryser and Shawn Cohen contributed to this report.

Reach Nicole Neroulias at nneroulilohud.com or 914-694-3527. accidents dress and just going crazy trying to find it," Jerry Silverman said. "When you're stuck in traffic and it tells you to make a right turn and it's a one way against you, you're in a pretty bad predicament It can be hairy sometimes." Yet Silverman counts himself among thousands of consumers who have decided that the occasional mishap and a few hundred dollars are a small price to pay for relative peace of mind and who can no longer imagine driving without a GPS by their side. Pound Ridge resident Ira Wodin even credits his Garmin, purchased seven months ago, with improving his marriage. "We took a long trip this past summer, over 3,000 miles, and it kept my wife and I from fighting over the map," he said.

"I'm not saying it's perfect. Occasionally we turn the wrong way or there's a small error. But it's made life so much easier." Despite his European adventure, Silverman wholeheartedly agreed, saying the driver was at fault for Wednesday's Metro-North crash, even if the GPS device had clearly instructed him to turn onto the train tracks. "You definitely have to pay attention," Silverman said. "Don't put your blind faith in it Thank God he wasn't killed or anybody else injured." Staff writer Shawn Cohen contributed to this report.

Reach Nicole Neroulias at nneroulilohud.com or 914-694-3527. LEGISLATURE, from 1A and Joseph-Felix Badio, chief of staff for Haiti's secretary of homeland security. Also swom in were 11 incumbents, three newcomers and one re- turning legislator, Alden Wolfe, D-Suffem. Two incumbents, Legislators VJ Pradhan, D-Nanuet; and Patrick Mo-roney, R-Pearl River, were absent In addition to Michel, the new faces are former Airmont Trustee Joseph Meyers, D-Airmont and businessman Frank Sparaco, R-Val-ley Cottage. "What a difference a year makes, huh?" said Wolfe, who was swom in to his old seat one year after he left it He served one year on the Legislature in 2006 before being defeated by former Legislator Bruce Levine.

Levine, who served for 10 years in the 1980s and 1990s, served again last year before being defeated by Wolfe in the primary and general elections. Meyers also had many supporters in the chambers as he reiterated his plan to focus on land-use issues. Meyers is the first member of the grass-roots Preserve Ramapo organization to be elected to the Legislature and the only member of the group's 2007 slate to win election. Preserve Ramapo opposes overdevelopment and has been critical of Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St Lawrence and his administration. Despite his election, at least one member of Meyers' family has higher aspirations.

"On Election night my 8-year-old daughter, Isabella, asked when we were moving to the White House," he joked. Sparaco kept his comments brief, but promised to always be receptive to his constituents. Tm here to be an honorable public servant" he said. As expected, Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, was selected to remain in the top leader- Angela GaulThe Journal News Legislator Jacques Michel, D-Spring Valley, speaks during yesterday's legislative meeting. He Is the first Haitian-American to be elected to the county Legislature.

ship post for fourth year, making her the longest consecutive-serving leader in the Legislature's 38-year history. She unveiled a new senior citizen-focused plan for 2008, Project Tomorrow: Aging in Place. In the next year, the Legislature will assess the current situation of the state of the elderly living in Rockland County and work to help senior citizens stay in their homes and communities as they age. Help to those individuals could be anything from lengthening the signal time for crosswalks to helping seniors manage the upkeep of their homes. Once again, Legislator William Darden, D-Hillcrest was named the Legislature's vice chairman.

Though four seats changed hands, the political party dynamics of the Legislature have not changed. There are 11 Democrats, five Republicans and one Conservative. Legislators are paid $32,587 annually $40,805 for the chairwoman. Their terms are for four years. Reach Sarah Netter at snetterlohud.com or 845-578-2433.

Nicole Neroulias The Journal News In an episode of "The Office" a few months ago, bumbling boss Michael Scott trusted his global positioning system so completely that he drove into a lake when directed to turn right "The machine knows!" he yelled, seconds before hitting the water. In the case of the California driver who caused a fiery train-car crash in Bedford Hills on Wednesday night and a spate of confused motorists reported throughout the world, truth may be even stranger than fiction. "As the car is driving over the tracks, the GPS tells him to turn right and he turns right onto the railroad tracks," said Dan Brucker, Metro-North Railroad spokesman, of Wednesday's accident at the Green Lane train crossing. "That's how it happened." With the boom in sales of GPS devices in recent years, police in the Lower Hudson Valley have also encountered more accidents caused by drivers blindly obeying, misinterpreting or becoming distracted by the illuminated screens with the authoritative voices. The driver involved in Wednesday's crash, a 32-year-old who works for a Silicon Valley tech company, was not familiar with local roads and therefore was relying heavily on the GPS device's commands, he told Metropolitan Transportation Authority police.

"One computer brain listening to another," Brucker said, chuckling. 1.