Unreal. I’m sorry to hear of this.
1 Like
This is somewhat old, but also somewhat related…
Sadly, the person may not get the punishment he deserves…
thus punishment to guy who almost killed the cyclist…
GoFundMe available here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/show-low-road-race-victims-families
3 Likes
I am an attorney here in Arizona. I don’t do criminal law, but one of my buddies does. I asked him about what kind of sentencing this guy can be looking at if, as someone said above, he has two prior aggravated DUIs.
Here’s what he said:
Wow! If his priors are true felony Aggravated DUIs, and not prior regular DUIs for aggravating sentencing purposes, then for sure they will lead to a big time sentencing enhancement. Each are forever allegeable as historical felony priors. So for a Class Four Felony, which most Agg DUI offenses are, his presumptive DOC term would rise from 2.5 years to 10 years. Plus, they could still use the fact of the priors as aggravating factors to deviate more harshly from the presumptive term. As he will be facing Class 2 Felony Agg Assault charges due to the injuries (and the leaving the scene), the historical felony enhancement will be even worse.
Even if the priors were not Agg DUIs, and were just regular DUI priors, they will still be seen as an aggravating factor to allow the sentencing judge to deviate from the presumptive term. But they would not automatically bump up the length of the presumptive term.
I hope any of this makes sense! Bottom line is he is $%#@ed. If he loses at trial, he would potentially be facing 20 plus years under what I anticipate they will charge him with. If I was his lawyer, I would probably be pleased with getting him 5-7 years DOC for this. Anything in single digits perhaps.
We also don’t know the circumstances of what led the police to shoot him, which may be an additional set of legal problems for this man. The long and short of it is that he should be going away for some time. It’s not going to be a slap on the wrist.
5 Likes
My friend looked up the driver in the court records. Here’s what he said:
I found a disorderly conduct from 2006 and an Aggravated DUI from 2009 or 2010. In both, he had issues on probation and nearly had it revoked. He served four months on the Agg DUI. This should mean he will only have one historical prior for sentencing enhancement. The confusion may have arisen because he was most likely charged with multiple counts of Agg DUI arising from the same offense. But you can only be convicted on one of them. Or, perhaps he has one from another jurisdiction or one from here that is not showing up in my search.
Here’s how that changes the prior analysis:
He only gets one historical prior instead of two. For a Class Two Felony (Agg Assault) it raises the presumptive term from 5 to 6.5. If they allege it as a dangerous felony, which they can because he used a car to implement his crime, the presumptive would also rise. It would depend on whether the last Agg DUI was also alleged as a dangerous offense. For a Class Four Felony (Agg DUI), the one historical prior would raise the presumptive term from 2.5 to 4.5. But there are a lot of other aggravating factors (and perhaps some mitigating) factors that would also factor in. It’s a complex scheme. Especially when there are different types of priors and ways they can enhance sentencing. But bottom line is one prior instead of two would save him probably at least five extra years.
1 Like
I hope they throw away the key…
Does anyone have any update on the cyclists? I know 6 were critical, but no recent news. Praying for them all to recover.
As of 2-3 days ago.
One of the AZ riders:
On a lighter note, one of our AZ cycling friends is doing better. Although he has two broken vertebrae and multiple other fractures and a chest tube for his punctured lung, we was able to stand today and upgraded from ICU.
And one of the NM riders:
He arrived in Abq last night around 8. Wife and daughter made it from ShowLow around midnight. He is scheduled for his surgery tomorrow. He slept last night but is having some memory issues. The brain bleed is stable, his left arm has more serious breaks, but both are broken, broken nose in two places, a couple of broken fingers, serious road rash on his legs, chest & chin and one of his eyes is swollen but they haven’t found anything wrong with it on his CT scans.
The following day.
Please do know that he is doing good and now alert and even has his sense of humor. When asked what year it is, he said, “1999, Let’s party!”
We have also received word that a few of the others are stable and improving, of course with a long road ahead and with life altering injuries.
6 Likes
And I don’t know about AZ “good time” calculations or parole, but here in the midwest, 40% of imposed prison is usually a pretty decent estimate of actual incarceration, taking into account concurrent vs consecutive imposition.
Here’s my question: why don’t they just change him with multiple counts of attempted murder and multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon? Wouldn’t that lead to potentially more prison time?
1 Like
Likely because intent becomes very hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt with intoxicated defendants. And intent is typically a requirement for [attempted] murder vs anything without intent that resembles “attempted” manslaughter.
You’re not wrong that more, and more serious charges, if supported by the evidence, should lead to heavier sentences.
I have more info than I care to post. Long story is it’s looking like everyone is going to recover.
The GoFundMe is up to $70,000 and growing which is pretty cool to see…
4 Likes
Unfortunately, rider down.
Fuck.
Peace to his friends and family.
2 Likes
Looks like the guy got charged with murder.
2 Likes
Good.
2 Likes