After watching two trials and a score of hearings, and after shedding buckets of tears, the legal process is over for Katie Pemberton of Lake Stevens, the mother of a 16-year-old high school junior who was killed in a prom night traffic collision on April 27, 2002.
"I have to go home and say, for this part, justice was served," said Pemberton after the second man involved in the road-rage incident that tragic night was sentenced to a year in jail.
But on a personal level there will never be justice, she said.
Pemberton has routinely been in court when the two men who were involved in the collision that took her daughter’s life were in court. The collision followed a school prom in Edmonds.
The second defendant, Lukasz Pawel Kutek, 22, of Shoreline, was given the one-year jail term Tuesday after pleading guilty to two driving charges.
"It is a case where Mr. Kutek apparently had an emotional response to another driver," said Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Larry McKeeman before he pronounced his sentence.
Kutek pleaded guilty in July to reckless driving, a gross misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and agreed to serve a year in jail. He will be allowed to keep his job working for a property management company because he will attend the county’s work release program beginning Sept. 29
The plea followed a trial for vehicular homicide in which the jury could not reach a unanimous decision. Jurors were deadlocked 11-1 to convict him of a felony that would have sent Kutek to a state prison for 1 1/2years or more.
In April, the second man involved in the incident, Allison Arnold, 34, of Bellevue, was convicted of vehicular homicide. He was sentenced to nearly 3 1/2years in prison because of his bad past driving record.
It was Arnold’s Ford Explorer that crossed the centerline of Highway 104 near Highway 99 and slammed into a white Ford Mustang in which Georgia Pemberton had been a passenger. According to testimony at trial, Arnold was attempting to pass Kutek after the two men played a deadly game of passing and blocking each other’s vehicles.
Deputy prosecutor Michael Downes said he agreed to the gross misdemeanor partly because jurors told him after Kutek’s trial that they thought Kutek should have been charged with a less serious crime.
"I took that into account" in plea negotiations with Shoreline defense attorney Mark Vanderveen, Downes told the judge.
Vanderveen emphasized that Kutek had no previous criminal or driving convictions and "is not predisposed to participate in road rage."
"It was nine or 10 seconds of poor decision-making," Vanderveen said. "It’s been hard on him, too. I’m convinced this had had a lasting impact on this young man."
Kutek had little to say, except to apologize.
"This was a big tragedy. If I had known what the other driver would do, I wouldn’t have done it," Kutek told the judge. "All I can say is I’m sorry."
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