Plea Deal

 

Beel and Ranger Danger

I've been dragging my feet on posting about the plea deal that Daniel Graska (a/k/a Sincere DeValencia) was offered and accepted. The virtual pre-trial hearing, when he was offered the deal, was on January 5th at 10:00 a.m. (1,141 days (3.13 years) since the accident).

We'd been joining in on all of the court proceedings via Webex since the whole thing started. The link to join had never changed, so at our prescribed time, we attempted to log in. Mom, from the Lodge; me from work. The Webex link that we've been using since the very first court date didn't work. We were texting back and forth frantically, and I finally went to the Utah state courts website and searched for the case that way. I was able to get in about four minutes late, but my audio wouldn't work. My coworker tried helping me to get my speaker to start working, but nothing happened. I could see that, for once, our case was first up and already underway, but I couldn't hear what was going on. I tried the "call me in" option for audio, only for my spam filter to block it without any way for me to recover the number. I watched, horrified, as that awful man answered the judge. I'm a terrible lip reader, so I started clicking around, looking for the closed captioning, and finally found the automated transcript.

Everything happened so quickly, that by the time I found the transcript and started taking screen shots so that Mom could see what was going on, it was over without representation from our family. 

Apparently, the courts used a different log-in for this court date, and no one had bothered to let us know. I was beyond livid. This was just one more way the Utah court system had failed us, and I wasn't shy about letting our victim's advocate know how I felt about it.

For a refresher on the original charges, go here.

They dropped the charge for almost killing Mom completely, and offered him this:

• Automobile Homicide. 3rd degree Felony; 0-5 years Utah State Penitentiary; $5,000 fine, plus 90% surcharge.
• Metabolite DUI. Class B Misdemeanor; 6 months jail; $100 fine, plus 90% surcharge.

That's it. 

Bill's death is worth $5,100 in fines according to Utah state law. Mom's injuries were insignificant enough in the eyes of the law for that charge to be dropped. As I said in my last post, we have a legal system, not a justice system.

I will say that the judge has been consistently good, and has taken no shit from Mr. Graska or his attorney. We do have the opportunity to influence the judge to give Mr. Graska the maximum sentence via our victim impact statements.

My anger with the court system is not because of the prosecutor or the judge, who are working as well as they can being handcuffed by the laws. My anger is due to the fact that it took so long for the investigation to be finished (590 days (1.62 years)), and the charges to be filed (725 days (1.99 years)). Add in the fact that we were never given the link to the pre-trail hearing, and I'm less than pleased with the Utah Court system. By the time he's sentenced on March 16th, it will have taken 1,211 days (3.32 years) to close this case.

The sentencing will be in person, and we will be present. Then, it'll be as over as it can be, and we can continue to go about rebuilding our lives without Beel.