Up to 36 weeks.
That’s how long a Lopez Island teen will be confined to a state-run juvenile detention center for the collision that killed a Canadian man in July.
The boy, who recently turned 16, was also ordered to serve a total of 45 additional days in detention in connection with five other criminal charges, including two counts of vehicular assault, a Class B felony.
The boy must perform 225 hours of community service and pay $790 in fines and fees as well.
It’s not the result local prosecutors were looking for. But Skagit County Judge John Meyer, filling in for San Juan County Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock, determined Jan. 8 that penalties beyond the standard range set by the state for juvenile offenders were not warranted.
Prosecutors wanted the teen to serve up to three years in detention; that was contested by the teen’s attorney, Mark Kaiman of Bellingham, a former local deputy prosecutor.
In his decision, Meyer noted the “weight is on the court” to follow the standard range unless there are “aggravating factors” that would compel a sentence beyond the norm. In the case of juveniles, the state standard for vehicular homicide, a Class A felony, is 15-36 weeks in juvenile detention.
State juvenile authorities will determine the amount of time the boy spends in detention.
The boy, though unlicensed to drive, was driving northbound on Lopez Sound Road at about 70 mph when — with a 17-year-old friend in the passenger seat begging him to slow down — his Chevy Nova came up over a rise in the road at about 2:30 p.m.
Approaching from the opposite direction on bicycles were a Seattle couple and their two young daughters. On the other side of the road, 26-year-old Paul Jaholkowsky of Abbotsford, B.C., was out on a mid- afternoon jog.
The Nova first clipped the couple’s 7-year-old daughter at a high-rate of speed, breaking her wrist and mangling the ring finger of her right hand; the finger was later amputated.
The car then hurtled across the road and struck Jaholkowsky head-on.
Authorities believe Jaholkowsky died instantly; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Neither boy in the car was wearing a seat belt, according to authorities. The passenger was thrown against the windshield and then ejected from the vehicle as it twice slammed into an embankment before coming to a stop. He suffered extensive injuries, including various wounds above the neck that required 800 stitches.
Prosecuting Attorney Randy Gaylord said he won’t “quarrel” over the sentence, but believes Meyer would have been justified in going beyond the norm given the circumstances of the fatal collision.
“We believe the boy in his conduct showed an extreme indifference to the safety of others by driving at such a high rate of speed,” he said. “We also believe that the victims in this case were particularly vulnerable. It was almost like a hostage situation for the passenger.”
