Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 12

i 12A DETROIT FREE PRESSWEDNESDAY, OCT. 12, 1983 SjQ manslaughter the price of life Seven drinking drivers who became killers Dennis James Harrison, 21, Grand Rapids, lost control of his Joseph Starling, 25, turned his truck into James Scott Machnik, 24, Plymouth, crashed his car into an Casey Lee Critchfield, 23, Kalkaska, lost control of his car and hit a I i 1 f.X Gregory Maurece Glenn, 28, Port Huron, drove into the rear I of a car in Marysville at 8:14 p.m. Sept. 1, 1980, killing its driver, Scott Thomas Sawdon, 17. Sawdon was dead on arrival at a Richard Union Lake, car on 1-96 Norton Shores at 11:36 p.m., May 13, 1982, and crashed into a cement barrier and another car.

Harrison was travel ing 80 to 1 i fc-i' I Starling "Ithe path of an oncoming car on Union Lake Road at 2:30 a.m. Dec. 27, 1980. Its driver, Kar-la Marie Thomas, 25, White Lake TownshiD. Critchfield guardrail and two large trees on M-32 near Gay-lord at 5:51 p.m.

Oct. 3, 1981. A passenger, 18-year-old Richard car while driving the wrong way on 1-94 near Ann Arbor at 3:30 a.m. Dec. 7, 1979.

Kenneth C. Kunsch, 33, a Strones- i Harrison 100 m.p.h., records show G'nr Detroit hos pital from a brain hemorrhage; broken jaw, leg and pelvis, and a shredded spleen. His mother, father and two sisters were hurt. Glenn's neck was broken. Police said Sawdon, returning from visiting his sister, was turning into his driveway when he was hit by Glenn, who they said was drunk and traveling 60 to 90 m.p.h.

Glenn had 10 prior traffic was kmed. Three of her passengers were hurt, including one who lost an eye and the use of an arm, records show. Thomas, who was nearly twice as drunk as Starling, had just left a tavern. It was unclear where Starling had been. Starling, who had three prior driving offenses, pleaded guilty to manslaughter when the prosecutor agreed to drop three felonious-driving counts.

One of his passengers, Robert VanSingel, 22, of Grand Rapids, was killed. Harrison, two of his passengers and the other driver were hurt. Harrison's group had purchased a 12-pack of beer and were "booze-cruisin' when the crash occurred, one passenger said. He said that when he and Ian Robert Brooks, 20, Grosse He, whose pickup hit a Grosse He bridge attendant at 1:20 a.m. June 17, 1982, while veering around a gate to avoid paying the 50-cent toll.

Hpnrv Fn. Brooks gene Bud. zyn, 59, of Riverview, who was cleaning the window of a toll-booth, died of injuries that included a broken back and severed leg. Police said Brooks and a passenger were heading home from a Wyandotte bar. They said Brooks was drunk.

Brooks, cited four times earlier for speeding and disobeying a stop sign, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. SENTENCE: Five years' probation, $1,300 court costs, 100 hours a year during his probation of community service the judge recommended Brooks coach underprivileged children in football or baseball no driving for two years, no drink ing during probation, finish col lege education. Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Farmer. Budzyn's widow and children are suing Brooks, the bar where he allegedly had been drinking and the scrap-iron company that owned the truck he was driving. Aft Lohr, of Kalkaska, died after he was thrown from the car.

Critchfield, who was drunk, said he and Lohr were en route to "Dead Man's Hill" to do some sightseeingBefore leaving, he added, they drank a fifth of whisky. When the crash happened, he was traveling an estimated 65 to i 70 m.p.h., according to records. Critchfield pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, in exchange for not having the prosecutor charge him as a habitual offender. Critchfield had been sentenced to three years and four months in prison in 1978 for larceny from a person, according to state records. His driving record shows six prior offenses, including one in 1980 for driving while impaired.

SENTENCE: Five to 15 years in prison. Otsego Circuit Judge William Porter. He lost an appeal. Critchfield is in Camp Lehman near Machnik ville, Ohio, pharmaceutical salesman, was killed. Machnik, who was drunk, had driven the wrong way for about 20 miles, despite repeated efforts by truck drivers and a sheriff's deputy, with his red lights flashing and siren going, to force him off the road, records show.

Three months before the crash, Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Ross Campbell partially restored Machnick's driving privileges, which had been revoked for poor driving. A jury found Machnik guilty of involuntary manslaughter. SENTENCE: iy2 to 15 years in prison. Judge Campbell. Machnik appealed, claiming Campbell prejudiced himself by telling Machnik's attorney: "You convinced me to restore his license, and now he has killed a man." Machnik lost the appeal.

He was paroled from a resident home in Ann Arbor in August. tickets, mostly for speeding, and had gotton his license back only a month before the crash, records show. A jury convicted Glenn of involuntary manslaughter. SENTENCE: Three to 15 years in prison. St.

Clair County Circuit Judge Ernest Oppliger. Eleven days before sentencing, Glenn was convicted of driving on an expired license. An appeal is pending. Glenn is in Camp Pontiac in Oakland County. another passenger complained about Harrison's excessive speed, Harrison pulled over, laughed and declared; "If you're afraid of dying get out." None did.

Harrison, whose license had been suspended twice for traffic tickets, pleaded no contest to Involuntary manslaughter. SENTENCE: 20 months to 15 years in prison. Muskegon County Circuit Judge James Graves. Harrison is in a corrections center in Grand Rapids. SENTENCE: Two years' probation, with the first 30 days in the county jail, $400 costs or fines, no drinking during probation, attend alcohol highway safety classes.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Fred Mester. Starling refused to fulfill the terms of the sentence in April, was ordered to perform several hours of community service in addition to the other conditions, Mester's court clerk said. I r- Drunk drivers' sentences light Carl Thomas Suchoski, 50 Harper Woods, drove his car through a wall of a Little Cae-! sar's Pizza; restaurant' in Harper Woods at; 9:26 p.m. June 6, 1981. A customer, Carol Elbode, Suchoski troit, was killed, were injured.

42, of De-Seven others. Suchoski, who was had several beers at a gradu- atlon party and had just purchased several more from an adjoining party store, according to records. He said he was sipping on a beer just before he started to leave the store. He claimed the accelerator pedal stuck. Witnesses said his car engine was running full throttle when the car stopped.

Suchoski, who had no prior felony record, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter by a jury. SENTENCE: Three to 15 years In prison. Wayne County Circuit Judge Irwin Burdick. The Michigan Court of Appeals denied his application to appeal. line of M-59 in White Lake Township in October 1981.

He killed the other driver, Barbara Lipinski, a 23-year-old Michigan State University graduate on her way home to Trenton frorn a football game in Last Lansing. Masters was driving on a suspended license, according to the Secretary of State Office, which said his license was rescinded because he did not com ply with a Warren District Court sen tence for disobeying a traffic signal. Masters' record also lists a 1977 im paired-driving conviction. At the time of the crash, Masters had accumulated 23 violation points on his license since 1964. He once served a jail term for theft and had at least three adult probations for larceny, disorderly conduct and family neglect, according to Michigan State Police records.

Templin gave Masters a year in the Oakland County Jail and five years' probation and fined him $800. In December, Templin released Masters from jail three months early. "A life is a very valuable thing. I don't hold it lightly," Templin said. "You can't bring the deceased back," and sending the killer to jail "isn going to make him a better citizen or rehabilitate him." Templin said "the real penalty will probably be in the civil case." Lipinski's family sued Masters in Oakland County Circuit Court.

The case was settled out of court last year, with the family receiving $16,868. Templin ordered probation in his other two cases. One defendant killed a 29-year-old Mt. Clemens man in a car- motorcycle crash in ltf2. He got a $600 fine and three years' probation under a special youthful-offender pro gram that allows punishment without a conviction record.

In the other case, Gilbert Theodore. Gauthler, 56, of Union Lake, was sen tenced to two years' probation and $400 in costs or fines for the death of Wllma Jean Patch, 36, of Oxford, in a January 1980 crash on M-24 in Orion Township. Gauthier, who was drunk, was driving in the wrong lane on his way home from a retirement party, Templin also prohibited Gauthier from driving between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. espite lighter sentences else where in the state, Yared defended his decision to send Kent to prison: "It's not a question whether the man had no prior record It was the nature of the offense and the type of homicide that was caused, and I felt very strong about it.

"I didn't think the sentence was that severe. Even if he had gone to a (guilty) plea on negligent homicide, he could have gotten 1 5, 1 6 months to two years. So it wasn that extensive a sentence. But Kent's attorney, Craig Avery, says he was flabbergasted by the sen-, tence. "I advised him to plead because of the judge past experience, and Dan got zinged," said Avery, a former assistant Kent County prosecutor.

"I never met someone who was as repentant as Dan I don't blame him for feeling like a victim. "You can't minimize the fact that someone lost their life and shouldn't have. And there should be some penalty for that. But when you look at the penalty Dan got in comparison to what others got, it's outrageously unfair." Free Press Photo bv IRA ROSENBERG Oakland County Circuit Judge Robert Templin, who sentenced three drunk drunk drivers for manslaughter in 1982 more than any other Michigan judge. One served nine months in jail; the other two got probation.

"A life is a very valuable thing. I don't hold it lightly," he says. But Yared said, "I got equally as many letters recommending leniency Those can't influence my decision. I go by the nature of the offense and the pre-sentence report, and I often don't follow that." Yared said he followed his sense of Justice. "I always used to think it (justice) was pretty fair," Kent lamented in a recent phone interview from his home in Grand Rapids.

"But after he sentenced me like he did, I don't think it's all that fair anymore." AFTER HE WAS SENTENCED in February 1982, Kent spent a month at the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson, 9l2 months at Camp Ojib-way in the Upper Peninsula and six months at Camp Sauble near Ann Arbor. Though more than a year was lopped off his sentence because of prison overcrowding and his good behavior, Kent said his family suffered extreme mental and financial hardship. Most weekends, his wife, Julia, drove 1,000 miles round-trip to visit him in the UP. Kent lost four years' seniority when he went back to his job at Steelcase, a Grand Rapids office furniture manufacturer. He said he still is seeing a psychologist.

His driver's license will be suspended until November 1984. "I feel terrible about having killed someone. It is an ugly scar I have to carry the rest of my life," Kent said. Vander Weele's family was outraged last month to learn that Kent was furloughed from prison and is required only to call the local community corrections center daily. "We haven't heard a thing from Dan Kent or his family," Randy's mother, Phyllis, said.

"If he was so DRUNK DRIVERS, from Page 1A sentence was one year in jail or prison. That compared with a four-year median sentence in assault cases, or five years when the two-year sentence for using a gun was figured into the assault median. The study also showed that drunk-driving sentences were just as disparate as those given people who stabbed, shot or beat their victims to death. If Kent had killed Vander Weele in Wayne or Oakland counties, rather than outstate, his odds of going to jail or prison would have been lower. Only 64 percent 14 of the 22 drunk drivers convicted of manslaughter in the two counties were incarcerated last year.

The median sentence for those drivers was one year. Outstate, 81 percent 17 of 21 drunk drivers went to jail or prison, and the median sentence was nearly twice as long 1.7 years. The remaining four defendants were given probation, compared with eight in Wayne and Oakland counties. MANY OF THOSE ACCIDENTS were similar to Kent's. Shortly after 6 p.m.

July 29, 1981, Kent ran a red light in suburban Wyoming and his car slammed into Vander Weele's car. Kent was on his way home from drinking with friends to celebrate the eve of his birthday. Vander Weele died of massive head injuries. Kent, whose blood alcohol level was .20 twice that considered by Michigan law to be drunk was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Judge Yared concedes he was under heavy pressure from the Vander Weeles and MADD members who wanted Kent to pay dearly for the life of the 21-year-old Calvin College honors graduate.

dr. 4 remorseful, why didn't he say something when he had a chance at his sentencing?" Added Alice Benton, president of Kent County's MADD chapter, which commended Yared for the sentence: "Dan Kent talks about losing three years of his life, but he will be back." he Kent case is a good yard stick against other alcohol-related manslaughter sen tences. The outcomes of those cases appear to bear little relation to how many people were killed, or how many prior traffic offenses the drivers had committed. Compare Kent's three-year sentence to the punishment given these three drunk drivers who caused multiple deaths: Stanley James, 27, of Bellwood, 111., killed three members of a family shortly after midnight Oct. 11, 1981, when his car veered across an 1-94 median in Berrien County and crashed into the family's van.

The van exploded, and its three occupants burned to death. Killed were: Sauti and Dennis Ledbet-ter, both 29, of Bellwood, 111., and Nealy Gaines, 82, Grand Rapids. Like Kent, James had a good driving record. Berrien County Circuit Judge Julian Hughes sentenced him to 1 l2 years in prison. James was paroled In August.

Terry Gene Roberts, 24, of Albion, killed three young Jackson County women shortly before midnight Sept. 19, 1981, by smashing into the back of their compact car as it was turning into a driveway near Jackson. Roberts' car hit the women's car so hard that the impact sent it somer- Roberts saulting high enough to break tree branches. Killed were: Vickie Lynn Bott, 21, of Jackson; Maureen Ann Cassidy, 22, Jackson, and Elizabeth Louise Miller, 22, Michigan Center near Jackson. Roberts, who had eight previous speeding tickets and convictions for theft and unarmed robbery, was sentenced to three years in prison by Jackson Circuit Judge Gordon Britten.

He was paroled last week. Johnny Lamar Downing, 32, Lake Wales, lost control of his car and slammed into two i trees on U.S. 31 near Benton Harbor at 1:12 a.m. Sept. 14, 1980.

His fiancee's daughter, brother and one of their friends were killed. Downing, a farm laborer, had been driving an Downing m.p.h. The victims were: Ronnie Dale Slkes, 23, and Felecia Ann Hogan, 3, both of Hartford, and Darlene Adams, 16, of Bangor, Mich. He pleaded no contest to one count of manslaughter the other counts were dropped but did not appear for 1 0 I 4 1 daylong drinking binge by hitting another car broadside, and killing one of its passengers, Diane Lennox, 22, Co-runna. He ignored a relative's warning that he was too drunk to drive.

Burns was sentenced by Saginaw County Circuit Judge Robert Gilbert. Eight of the 19 sentenced to prison got two years or less the maximum penalty allowed for the next less-serious offense, negligent (vehicular) homicide. Such sentences have spurred the growth of MADD, which, in turn, has raised public awareness of the drunk-driving threat and was largely responsible for the state's tough drunk-driving laws that became effective in April. The new laws require automatic license suspensions of three to six months for first-time offenders and make it easier for police to use blood-alcohol tests to prove drunkenness. But even with the new laws, some judges and prosecutors contend it is unfair to treat drunks as harshly as people who kill with guns, knives and fists.

Most drunk drivers, they point out, don't intend to kill. "They had been out drinking, they make a mistake, and a life is gone," said Oakland County Circuit Judge Robert Templin, who sentenced more drunk drivers for manslaughter than any other Michigan judge in 1982. Templin's toughest 1982 sentence went to Roy Richard Masters, 41, of Warren, who veered across the center- Cominfl up THURSDAY: Judges, juries and prosecutors have changed the slogan that ballyhooed Michigan's 1 977 law requiring two years In prison for carrying a gun In a felony: One with a gun may get you none. FRIDAY: What can the Legislature and the Supreme Court do to guarantee fair, equal and effective justice in Michigan? sentencing. After his arrest more than a year later, Berrien County Circuit Judge Julian Hughes sentenced him to two years in prison, plus 60 days for contempt of court.

He was paroled last June. In Detroit's only drunk-driving manslaughter case last year, Larry Richard Lawson, 30, of Southfield, caused one death as did Kent but Lawson had more traffic tickets and an extensive criminal record. Lawson's blood-alcohol level was measured after the Dec. 18,1981, crash at .38, nearly four times the 1 0 the law defines as drunk. Lawson was driving 85 m.p.h.

in a 30 m.p.h. zone when his car crossed the centerline of Davison at 10:15 p.m. and struck broadside a car driven by Charles Rodgers 65, of Detroit. Rodgers died, and Lawson received severe head injuries. Lawson pleaded no contest to manslaughter after being told his sentence would not exceed four to 15 years in prison.

Recorder's Court Judge Dalton Roberson gave him 2'2 to 15 years. Lawson had served 712 years of a 15-to-25-year sentence given in the 1970s for armed robbery, and had been jailed for assault, fraud and attempted theft. Lawson will have served 1 '2 years in prison if he is released as scheduled next March. If Michigan prisons become crowded beyond their legal limit, he could be released even sooner. Three months after the fatal crash and six months before he was sentenced, Lawson was arrested in South-field for driving while impaired, according to his driving record.

He later was convicted. THE LIST goes on. Nineteen drunk drivers were sentenced to prison for manslaughter in 1982. Twelve others got a year or less in jail with probation, and 12 got probation with fines and other conditions. Of the 19 who went to prison, only one got the maximum 10-to-15-year sentence.

That was Benjamin Thomas Burns, 43, of Saginaw, who ended a re Randy Vander Weele died in July 1981 when Daniel Kent ran a red light near Grand Rapids and slammed his car into Vander Weele's car, above. Kent, whose blood alcohol level was .20 twice that considered by Michigan law to be drunk was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Grand Rapids Circuit Judge Woodrow Yared. left, sentenced Kent, a 23-year-old welder, to three to 1 5 years in prison..