Since 2005 in Colorado, nearly a third of those convicted in deadly drinking and driving crashes were incarcerated for two years or less — and 13 of them spent no time behind bars at all.
Drunken drivers kill more than 100 people each year in Colorado, and a Denver Post examination of every vehicular homicide-DUI case in the state from 2005 through early 2009 found that the typical sentence for those who were sent to prison was six years. But the same analysis found that nearly a third of the cases — 55 of 185 — resulted in jail, community corrections or work- release terms of 24 months or less. Included in that tally were more than a dozen instances in which defendants were allowed to plead to misdemeanor
charges. Some of those who ended up with little or no prison time had prior drug and alcohol convictions, including one man with four prior drunken driving arrests before killing a passenger in his car in a police chase. He was sentenced to two years of work release.
A number of others got jail terms of between 30 and 60 days. And one man got 10 days in jail in Larimer County after pleading guilty to careless driving causing death, a misdemeanor, after a crash that killed a 38-year-old woman.
State Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, who plans to introduce legislation in January to make a repeat drunken driving arrest a felony, said some of the sentences stunned him.
"We've got to address those areas where the law isn't treating offenders as seriously as it needs to in order to prevent it from happening again," Gardner said.
But the reality is that unlike some crimes, which carry specific sentences, fatal drunken driving crashes can yield a variety of actual charges and a wide range of sentences.
"Every case is different," said Denver defense attorney Charles Elliott, "so in a way it is kind of heartening that there is a wide range."
The Post examined all 202 Colorado cases in which motorists were charged with vehicular homicide-DUI from 2005 through early 2009. Drivers in their 20s accounted for more than half the cases. In a handful of all cases, drinking, driving and death resulted in big headlines and long sentences.
Patrick Strawmatt, a former police officer, was sentenced to 72 years after killing two teenagers while fleeing from police in western Colorado. And Lawrence Trujillo was sent to prison for 48 years after mowing down Frank and Becca Bingham and their children, Macie, 4, and Garrison, 2. Only Frank Bingham survived.
Two other cases resulted in sentences of 48 and 54 years.
Sentences weave all over
But those high-profile cases, The Post found, were anomalies. Not every drunken driving crash ends in criminal charges. In many instances, the drunken driver dies. But in those that did result in charges, The Post found:
• Sentences varied widely from one jurisdiction to another. In Denver, a drunken driver who killed someone was typically sent to prison for eight years. In Boulder, that typical sentence was less than 2 1/2 years. Statewide, the typical sentence was six years.
• Sentences varied even in seemingly similar crimes. In one El Paso County case, a man charged with killing a passenger in his car during a police pursuit — his fifth DUI case — ended up with a two-year work-release sentence. In an Arapahoe County case, a man who killed a passenger in his car in
Sharon Watkins sat through the Jefferson County courtroom sentencing of Shane Hoffart, the motorcycle driver whose crash killed her daughter, Natasha Michaud. "Whose daughter is he going to kill next time?" she asked. Hoffart was sentenced to four years in prison but could be out in less than two. ( John Prieto, The Denver Post )
a police pursuit — also his fifth DUI case — was sentenced to 36 years behind bars.
• In 13 cases, the drivers who killed spent no time in jail, and in others they received sentences of as little as 10 days.
• Probation also varied widely — from as little as one month to as much as 10 years.
• Of the 185 cases that have been adjudicated, 73 were settled with plea agreements that saw the defendants walk away with convictions to lesser charges. In seven cases, for example, defendants pleaded guilty to careless driving causing death and driving while under the influence of alcohol — two traffic misdemeanors.
The Post also found 33 cases in which defendants left court with convictions that show no alcohol violation.
That's different from what is supposed to happen in a drunken driving case. Under Colorado law, a defendant cannot plead to a non-alcohol charge unless prosecutors tell a judge they cannot prove the case.
But Ted Tow, executive director of the Colorado District Attorneys Council, found "there is no such restriction in the plea bargaining in the vehicular homicide-DUI area."
The 33 cases included ones in which defendants pleaded guilty to charges such as careless driving causing death, leaving the scene of an accident, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Among those cases were 20 instances that ended in convictions of vehicular homicide-reckless. That is a lower-level felony than vehicular homicide-DUI.
Emotions run high in court
No matter the facts of a case, sentencing hearings in fatal drunken driving crashes are fraught with emotion.
On Sept. 18, that emotion played out in the Jefferson County courtroom of District Judge Jane Tidball in case No. 2009-CR-198, the People of the State of Colorado vs. Shane Allen Hoffart.
Pictures of Natasha Michaud slowly moved across the video screen next to Tidball. There was Natasha as a little girl with red hair standing with her family in front of a Christmas tree. In a white gown at graduation. Getting married outdoors.
The final photos showed her with her three young sons, ages 1 to 7.
The pictures stopped at age 25.
That's when Michaud died instantly after being thrown from Hoffart's motorcycle in a drunken driving crash. It was the fifth time in the past decade Hoffart had been charged with drinking and driving.
An hour later, Tidball sentenced Hoffart to four years in prison. It was the longest term she had handed out in any of the five vehicular homicide cases she handled the past four years. Even so, Hoffart probably will be out in less than two years, said Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey.
"I wish the sentence was longer," Storey said.
Natasha's mother, Sharon Watkins, was more blunt.
"Whose daughter is he going to kill next time?" said Watkins, wearing a purple ribbon.
On Aug. 23, 2008, as he sped toward the foothills on U.S. 285 with Michaud on the back of his bike, Hoffart lost control. The motorcycle went down in a curve, throwing Michaud into a pole.
Testing problems led to contradictory blood-alcohol test results, prosecutor Jacque Russell said. The first test found alcohol in Hoffart's system, but not enough to prove he was legally drunk. Two subsequent tests found he was drunk. Hoffart pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide-reckless driving.
During the two-hour sentencing hearing, tears flowed in the courtroom. Russell asked for the maximum six years in prison. Defense attorney Kelly Burgett sought intensive supervision probation.
On the right side of the courtroom sat Watkins with Natasha's sister, brother and husband. On the left sat Hoffart's friends, boss and minister.
Watkins, between tears, talked for more than 30 minutes about the daughter who called her almost daily, about a woman who "would light up the room" when she entered.
She said she couldn't accept her death. On the anniversary of the accident, she sat by the telephone all day and through half the night waiting for a call to tell her it had been a mistake.
"The phone call did not come," she said.
Andrew Michaud, Natasha's husband, talked of his three children.
"I have to look into their eyes every day and see that missing piece of her life that will never be given back," he said.
Defendant apologizes
Then it was Hoffart's turn. Dressed neatly in slacks and a blue striped shirt, he grasped several white notebook pages filled with single-spaced writing in blue ink.
He turned to the family to read the letter he wrote, he too sniffling back tears.
"I apologize," he said, "for your loss. You lost a beautiful member of your family."
Sharon Watkins put her hand to her face as Hoffart described his love for Michaud.
"The world's a darker place without her," he said. "I wish I could trade places."
Tidball handed down the sentence quickly, noting that Hoffart's sentences and treatment for his past DUIs had not had much of an impact.
"They obviously have not worked for him."
Andrew Michaud had spent the first eight months of the year in Army Reserve training, an absence that had strained his marriage. He had been home about 24 hours when his wife was killed.
After the crash, Andrew walked along the highway, past the places accident investigators had marked with orange spray paint. He saw the skid marks, the furrows where a stretcher had rolled through the gravel. He looked at the surgical gloves left at the scene, the footprints around one spot.
It wasn't hard to tell precisely where his wife died.
"I walked up and down that stretch so many times," he said.
In an interview, he spoke slowly, evenly, in the tone of a man who has struggled for a year to contain his anger and grief.
"There's not enough that they can take from him to undo what he did," he said.