Eye on the Courts: Long Prison Sentence in Vehicular Manslaughter Case – But Not What You Think

It was a tragic accident on I-5 in Woodland on August 8, 2011, that left three people dead and seven others with serious injuries.  The Yolo County District Attorney’s office put the blame on “one man and one man only,” Gubani Roderico Rosales Quinteros.  The 42-year-old faced three felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.

After a juror hung the trial the first time, the case went to a court trial back in July, with Judge Mock ruling in favor of vehicular manslaughter but without the gross negligence charges.

The remarkable thing about this case is that Mr. Quinteros was not drinking and driving, he was not on his cell phone, and he was not speeding.  Judge Mock instead determined that, for a ten-second period of time, he was inattentive and for that he was negligent.

Judge Mock said that, based on witness testimony, one would have to conclude that if the defendant would have recognized visual cues, he could have stopped. However, he did not pick up any of the cues and he continued to drive at a speed of 70 miles per hour during those 10 seconds of inattention.

“He never realized the trouble ahead of him. Even if he checked his mirrors,” he said.

He continued, “All that means, is that the defendant was inattentive. All I can say is that clearly he was inattentive.” He went on to describe how there was no distraction at hand and thus no reason for why the defendant’s focus should be distracted. He was not under the influence, he was not eating, he was not talking on the phone, and so on.

Therefore, the only explanation, Judge Mock concluded, is that of inattention.

While Judge Mock ultimately ruled that gross negligence involves more than inattention and that he is compelled to find that, while the defendant was guilty of vehicular manslaughter causing death with ordinary negligence, he cannot find that it was with gross negligence.

On Friday, Mr. Quinteros, a now 43-year-old Elk Grove resident, was sentenced to 14 years and 8 months, though most of that time had nothing to do with the crash and everything to do with 37 counts of felony identity theft.

The defendant obtained identification to assume the identity of Carlos Adrian Quinteros Hernandez. He assumed this identity some time during the years of 1989-1994.

He proceeded to explain how the defendant used documents to obtain a driver’s license, social security card, and resident alien card.

I cannot help but wonder at the nature of our justice system.  Last week, we saw a man acting with malicious intent receive what will amount to a two and a half year county jail sentence for beating a man nearly to death, and here we have a man who, at most, was inattentive for ten seconds and had fraudulent papers and will receive a nearly 15-year prison sentence.

I cannot but help thinking of the interview and presentation from the lone holdout juror who felt that Mr. Quinteros had been railroaded in this case from the start.

The juror wrote to the Vanguard in an email, “My mind has not been at ease since I hung the jury, and this matter eats at me knowing that this man sits in jail as I write this.”

The juror, whose name has been withheld by request, told the Vanguard, “I ended up hanging the jury because I felt (and still feel) that there is a strong chance that the defendant was being railroaded for three manslaughter charges due to his possibly being an illegal immigrant.”

The juror added, “I believe that there may be evidence that exists that could potentially exonerate this man of these charges.”

The Vanguard has learned that, while this juror was the lone holdout, other jurors expressed similar concerns following the trial.

“I have since found out that other jurors, who did not speak up during deliberations, have also informed the Public Defender that they felt the defendant was being railroaded,” the juror told the Vanguard.  “The best I could do was to hang the jury and a mistrial was declared.”

However, the juror was concerned about the evidence presented in the case.  The juror noted that no physical evidence was presented that showed that the defendant had driven unsafely on the day in question.

The defendant had no drugs or alcohol in his system.

More importantly, every person involved in the crash had testified that they almost crashed into the vehicle in front of them and were worried about being hit by the drivers behind them.

During closing arguments, Public Defender Allison Zuvela argued that the first person arriving at the site prior to the accident had to come to an abrupt stop.  This gave each subsequent driver less time to react in order to stop.

Mr. Quinteros crashed the box truck into the first vehicle, and this consequently set off a chain reaction of vehicles crashing into other vehicles, and suggests that Mr. Quinteros had less time than any other driver to react to the sudden stop in traffic.

The juror felt that the lane closure was part of the problem.

“I believe [the lane closure] was executed improperly and created a dangerous and hazardous driving condition,” the juror wrote.  “It is my belief that certain entities and agencies (CalTrans, Yolo County, CHP, etc) would be liable to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in settlements unless criminal liability can be placed upon the driver who initiated the collision.”

“I believe that certain investigators have withheld, omitted, and purposely interpreted evidence so that the investigation would focus solely on the driver,” the juror wrote.

The juror felt as if the fact that the driver had questionable documentation produced a prejudiced environment, both in terms of the investigation and perhaps in playing a role with the jury deliberation, as well.

In fact, the juror felt pressured during the deliberations to vote guilty on the two charges related to the defendant’s identity and paperwork.  The juror came to regret the decision to vote guilty, and said, “I informed the judge that I regret both of those votes and would take them back if I could. Unfortunately, the two guilty verdicts were entered.”

Clearly, Mr. Quinteros made mistakes both in terms of his papers and in terms of his driving.  The judge found that it was his inattention for the briefest of times that led to the crash, but the juror paints a different picture of a dangerous scene, with others narrowly avoiding a crash.

It is no doubt a tragic accident that took the lives of several people – nothing can take away from that tragedy.  But putting Mr. Quinteros in prison for 15 years is not going to remedy that either.

Except that in this case, most of the 15 years have nothing to do with the accident itself.  Mr. Quinteros is an undocumented immigrant.  He would receive five years in prison for providing false identity on the day of the crash and presenting it again to authorities a few days later.

The fraud charges – 35 felonies in all – added up to 164 months in prison, while the manslaughter charge was only a one-year sentence.

Think about that one for a while.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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