Dr. James Corasanti

During my many years as a working journalist, I’ve covered just about every kind of story you can imagine, from pathological racist Joseph Christopher’s one-man war against blacks that began in 1980 and claimed at least 13 victims, one in Niagara Falls, to the brutal attack on Councilman Robert Anderson’s daughter that left her in a coma.
    It is never easy to maintain your professional composure in the face of some of the horrible sights and sounds of the criminal world and it is equally difficult to deal with cases like the one that is now front and center in Buffalo and all of Western New York, the manslaughter trial of Dr. James Corasanti in a fatal hit-run case that claimed the life of 18-year-old Alexandria Rice.
     The government alleges that Dr. Corasanti struck and killed the girl as she was on a long board on her way home from work at a pizza shop shortly after 11 p.m. last July on Heim Road in Amherst.  Prosecutors allege that Corasanti was on his way home from a golf outing where he had been drinking when his car struck and killed the girl and he failed to stop.
    No matter how you look at this case, it is a tragedy all around.  A young girl’s life was ended on a dark road when she was struck by a car driven by a prominent and highly regarded 56-year-old physician who has spent his life saving people.  Nothing can bring Alexandria back and no matter the outcome of the trial, Dr. Corasanti’s life will never be the same.
    The publicity the case has generated has been staggering.  Reporters, under some of the tightest courtroom security I have ever seen, have been filing almost hourly reports on local radio and television and President Obama’s unannounced trip to Afghanistan was relegated to the bottom of the front page to make room for the trial.
      While the nonstop coverage has made the trial the top news of the day, the jury is not being sequestered and one can only hope that jurors follow the instructions of the court and avoid reading and watching reports and make their decision on what they see and hear in the courtroom, not in the media.
      The prosecution has presented compelling and graphic evidence to try and convince the jury that Dr. Corasanti was drinking that terrible night, was sending text messages on his phone prior to hitting the girl, and then didn’t stop after his car hit her, leaving her mortally injured on the side of the road.  It appears to be a very strong case to this point but the trial is not over and the most dramatic testimony is likely to come from Dr. Corasanti himself when he takes the stand in his own defense, as expected.
      One doctor who I spoke to who has worked with Dr. Corasanti described him “as an excellent man and a fantastic doctor.”  Will Dr. Corasanti be able to convince the jury that he really didn’t know he had hit the girl, as his defense has claimed, and will he be a sympathetic witness, as some observers seem to feel, given his record of healing people, not of reckless disregard for human life?  How will the jury, given all they have seen and heard about the young girl’s death, react to Dr. Corasanti once they hear from him about the events of that tragic night?
      We won’t know the answers to those questions for a while, but the drama of Dr. Corasanti’s testimony will be the highlight of this sensational trial and could weigh heavily in jurors’ minds when they deliberate their verdict.