4 months in jail is no joke<<
I bet he won’t spend one day in jail. WTF is a “sherriff’s furlough program”?
I look at a picture of Kristy and Matt’s smiling faces every time I get on my road bike. Little pictures of their last win (same race–MERCO) on taped on my stem.
clm
Friday, May 8, 2009 (SF Chronicle)
Deputy pleads guilty in bike-crash deaths
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
(05-08) 13:27 PDT SAN JOSE – A Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy
pleaded guilty today to two misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter
for hitting and killing two bicyclists last year when his patrol cruiser
crossed the center line.
Deputy James Council, 28, entered his pleas before Judge David Cena of
Santa Clara County Superior Court. Council is expected to be sentenced
June 25 to four months in county jail in the deaths of Matt Peterson, 29,
of San Francisco and Kristy Gough, 30, of San Leandro.
Council will be eligible to serve that time in a sheriff’s furlough
program or in home detention, authorities said. He will also be required
to perform 800 hours of community service, said Deputy District Attorney
Ray Mendoza.
The prosecutor said the expected sentence is appropriate “in light of all
the circumstances. This is a tragic case for everybody involved.”
Gough’s father had sought more jail time for Council, but he and other
relatives recognized that no amount of time would “bring back their
children,” Mendoza said.
The accident happened March 9, 2008, when Council’s cruiser crossed the
center line on Stevens Canyon Road in Cupertino and struck three cyclists.
Peterson died at the scene, and Gough died a short time later at a
hospital. The third bicyclist, Christopher Knapp of Germany, was badly
injured but survived.
Witnesses later said there were no skid marks and that the deputy said he
had fallen asleep at the wheel. One said he had heard the distraught
Council say, “My life is over,” and “My career is over,” and, “I need to
help.”
Council’s attorney, Michael Rains, confirmed that the deputy had nodded
off. Council, who had been with the department for 18 months, was 4 1/2
hours into a 12-hour shift at the time of the Sunday morning crash after
working a 12 1/2-hour shift the day before.
Prosecutors have concluded that Council was not engaged in serious
reckless driving, such as running a stoplight, and had no drugs or alcohol
in his system at the time of the crash.
“It was just a terrible tragedy and accident in every sense of the word,”
Rains said.
Council was prepared to go to trial Monday on the misdemeanor charges, but
he did not want to subject his family or relatives of the victims to
“gruesome” photos and difficult testimony, Rains said.
Council remains on administrative leave from the Santa Clara County
sheriff’s office. “We’re discussing what impact this could have on his job
with the sheriff,” Rains said.
The three victims were among about a dozen people riding with Third
Pillar, a San Mateo-based bicycle racing team, and Team Roaring Mouse from
San Francisco. The group had started a ride at Highway 92 and Cañada Road
west of San Mateo and had been heading toward Stevens Creek Reservoir,
about five minutes by bike from where the accident happened on the
winding, two-lane road.
Gough was a professional triathlete who had recently taken up road racing
and who friends said had won every race she entered in 2008. She and
Peterson, an amateur road racing cyclist who like Gough had done
triathlons, both won their divisions in a road racing event in downtown
Merced eight days before they died.
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2009 SF Chronicle