A substance-abuse counselor, Sherri Lynn Wilkins, 53, has been sentenced to 55 years to life in prison for second-degree murder after hitting and killing 31-year-old Phillip Moreno in November 2012 — and then driving away with him dying on her windshield.
Wilkins was found with a blood-alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit at the time of the accident in Torrence, California. Her defense was curious in that she insisted that she was not drunk but merely “self-medicating” while waiting for knee-replacement surgery. She had consumed three single-serving bottles of vodka and a can of Budweiser beer and Clamato before starting to drive. That would put anyone into a drunken state.
The sentence is quite long for this type of accident which is usually charged as vehicular manslaughter. However, Superior Court Judge Henry Hall said, “Ms. Wilkins demonstrated an extraordinary callousness in fleeing the scene and trying to shake Mr. Moreno’s body off her car. This is a callous murder, not an unfortunate act.” The sentencing is particularly interesting because it was set under the state’s three strikes law. Wilkins has a long history of drug abuse and arrests. Hall used that record to triple the 15 years to life sentence.
The fact that the prior crimes were not crimes of violence makes the case somewhat novel but not unique. Hall acknowledged that and that “She’s not a classic violent criminal. But you have to evaluate her history. She had an insatiable desire to become intoxicated.”
Many courts would have viewed the 15 to life sentence as more than enough for such a crime. The use of the three strikes law could make for an interesting appeal but often sentencing is viewed as a discretionary function for the trial court. It is one of the longest sentences that I have seen in such a case.
Source: Freep
Paul C. Schulte
mespo – I would posit that as a substance abuse counselor, she knows the effects of various substances on the body and brain. Her mere taking of those substances at the quantity she admits taking them and in the mixture she admits taking them indicated intent and depraved indifference.
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maybe that’s why they call them “addicts”.
pete – she probably is an addict, but that is a reason, not an excuse.
Maybe Paul that’s true or perhaps her background led her to self-medicate. Neither position was cited by the judge so we must assume that was not on his mind.
Mespo – we must assume nothing about the state of mind of the sentencing judge. She was convicted and sentenced and as I have said before, with good behavior, will do 17 1/2 years. She will be out before her 75th birthday.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – I am with the parole board. He has not been clean and sober long enough. He had found a way to get drugs and alcohol while in prison. That did not make him a model prisoner. BTW, he was in the SHU, Security Housing Unit, not ‘shoe’ as the HuffPo would have you believe. It is pronounced the same.
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My point was that certain commenters upthread had misrepresented the California Parole System by saying Sheri would get out soon.
She won’t.
Dredd – 17 1/2 years with good behavior is what I give her. She will be out before her 75th birthday.
Paul:
” Mespo her intent is when she started drinking or ‘self-medicating.’
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Well, that’s my point. To be guilty of murder she has to have malicious intent. That’s either a conscious intent to do harm or to the intent to act with depraved indifference to human life. If her intent was to self-medicate as she claims and those plans went awry resulting in a death, she’s guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Now if her intent was to get hammered and then drive her car as fast as she can then a plausible argument could be made that such actions deriving from that intent amount to deprave indifference and hence murder. However I saw no evidence of that in the article or in the judge’s ruling. I think the judge just got caught up in the emotion of the case and forgot his lawyer hat.
mespo – I would posit that as a substance abuse counselor, she knows the effects of various substances on the body and brain. Her mere taking of those substances at the quantity she admits taking them and in the mixture she admits taking them indicated intent and depraved indifference.
“Isn’t that speeeecial.”
Thanks, Nick, now I can’t get the SNL Church Lady out of my head!
Karen, Get me info on the shitbird and I’ll let your family know how he ended up. Gratis. That is the LEAST they deserve.
Nick – both were in CA, one Southern the other Central. One of the drivers had already killed before, drunk driving, and he was still very young. Didn’t get any jail time with this one, either. His parents pleaded that it would ruin his life and sent him to the military. Don’t know how he ended up.
Saucy, The Church Lady would say, “Must be Satan.”
Paul, they placed “the shoe” in quotation marks. What does that indicate?
Annie – you seem to be my minder today? Is that your assignment?
I’m watching youuuuuu. 😉
Dredd – I am with the parole board. He has not been clean and sober long enough. He had found a way to get drugs and alcohol while in prison. That did not make him a model prisoner. BTW, he was in the SHU, Security Housing Unit, not ‘shoe’ as the HuffPo would have you believe. It is pronounced the same.
Now if it were not for that idiot Angela Corey who charged Zimmerman with murder, an impossible charge to convict on, he would have been charged with manslaughter and done at lest 20 years. That would have been justice for starting a fight and bringing a gun. Now if there were only a way to put Corey behind bars.
For his first 19 years in prison, Stephen Anderson had been anything but a model prisoner.
Convicted in 1988 of first-degree murder for shooting to death Jackie Bewley as she ran from his van following an argument in an Oxnard parking lot, Anderson was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. He was 25 years old.
In January 2007, at age 44, he got his first shot at trying to get paroled. It did not go well.
…
Although California is under a U.S. Supreme Court order to reduce its prison population, Shaffer said commissioners do not consider such outside factors. Blocking them out, she said, “is easier than most people think. The external stuff, I don’t think that impacts them. These are very, very difficult, high-stakes decisions.”
Stephen Anderson, the inmate who was told to “straighten up your act” at his initial parole hearing in 2007, got another shot at parole during a hearing two months ago at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where he is now housed.
Now 50, Anderson told the board that he was a changed man — and that his denial of parole six years earlier had been the turning point. That decision had so depressed him, he said, that he became suicidal and was placed in “the shoe,” a solitary confinement cell.
“It wound up to be a blessing from God,” he told commissioners. “The true reality of everything finally took hold. My belief system was so warped and twisted. I was an idiot.”
He stopped taking drugs and received no further disciplinary citations. He availed himself of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and other self-help programs. He connected with a group called Prisoners Abroad in London and made plans to return to Scotland, where he had spent the first few years of his boyhood.
The Board of Parole Hearings commended Anderson on his progress, but was not persuaded he was suitable for release. It rejected his parole request, and recommended that he continue to remain disciplinary-free and participate in self-help programs. The panel rescheduled another hearing in three years, with the strong possibility that it could be moved up to next year.
“You do still pose an unreasonable risk to society,” Commissioner Amarik Singh told him.
(Huffington Post).
issac – manslaughter was given to the jury and they turned that down too. The whole charging of Zimmermann was bogus.
According to the LA Times, she has two prior burglary convictions so she deserves the three-strikes sentence. And nobody forced the booze down her throat.
Aggravating factor, drug counselor. Sentence is excessive, it will probably be overturned on appeal.
RTC – The last time I looked, Cheney was not President, but VP. Since when in our form of government are such orders passed out to our bureaucracy for execution ? How was all this power obtained ? I hate it when people, such as yourself, exposé such overreach. Is it seeking to influence the under-aware or is it only available as a paralogism of a group’s jeremiad ?
Even if you are not ADD, Ritalin helps anyone focus.
I think Ritalin should be required for blog commenting.
It started as a humorous remark, Mike, that outraged Buck. Nevertheless, there really isn’t any argument about it. Does your 13% club hold meetings?
It takes a special kind of partisan hack to turn a non-political discussion into an argument about Dick Cheney…..ADHD strikes again.