Woman sentenced in teen’s death must remain in jail

The state Court of Appeals won’t free a woman convicted in the 2007 Ecstasy overdose death of a Puyallup teen.

In a written opinion released July 27, the court agreed that Donalydia Huertas, 19, should remain behind bars until her 21st birthday for the death of Danielle McCarthy, 16.

Huertas, who turns 20 next month, has been locked up since August 2008 when Superior Court Judge Ellen Fair sentenced the teen to about two years behind bars.

Huertas was accused of providing McCarthy with Ecstasy, a potent party drug, on New Year’s Eve 2006. She also was accused of refusing to summon medical attention for McCarthy who showed signs of overdosing for more than eight hours.

McCarthy was eventually taken to Stevens Hospital in Edmonds, where she was pronounced dead.

Huertas, who was 17 at the time of the incident, was tried as an adult.

A jury convicted Huertas of controlled substance homicide but couldn’t agree on the first-degree manslaughter charge. Instead, jurors found Huertas guilty of the lesser second-degree manslaughter charge. That crime on its own was not serious enough to keep the case in adult court.

Under juvenile rules, the standard sentence was up to 30 days in juvenile detention.

Fair determined that the standard juvenile sentence would be a manifest injustice.

The judge said Huertas needed to be locked up longer than a month to protect the community. The crime was cruel and McCarthy was a vulnerable victim whom Huertas refused to help, the judge ruled.

Huertas appealed the conviction and the manifest injustice sentence. She argued that her right to a speedy trial was violated, the jury received improper instructions and claimed that she was convicted twice for the same crime. She also argued that the judge relied on inappropriate factors to deviate from the standard sentence.

The appeals court declined to overturn the conviction. The court determined that Fair erred on two points when handing down the sentence but upheld the sentence, finding that Fair would have arrived at the same decision if she hadn’t relied on the two factors, according to the opinion.

Diana Hefley writes for the Herald of Everett.