12-Year Sentence in Fatal Drunk Driving Crash Voided

A state appellate court has thrown out the 12-year sentence of a drunk driver who killed an engineer in a traffic accident, saying that the driver’s eight previous drunk driving convictions make him eligible for up to life in prison.

“We’re pleased with the ruling, and we expect the case to go back to court in about a month,� said Sandi Gibbons of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Johnny Castro, 39, killed Mahdad Koosh in a January 1998 accident on the Golden State Freeway. A jury convicted him on one count of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.

But the jury didn’t know that Castro had prior drunk driving convictions until he admitted it after the verdict was rendered.

It was only at the sentencing hearing that prosecutors brought up those prior convictions. At that point, they tried to amend their complaint against Castro to apply a 1997 law that punishes drunk drivers who kill someone--and who have prior drunk driving convictions--with 15 years to life in prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Meredith C. Taylor ruled that the amendment “would be a mistake,� which would violate Castro’s right to due process.

The appellate court, however, ruled earlier this month that the “trial court abused its discretion in denying the request to amend the information.� Castro’s prior convictions, if proved in court, it said, can be used against him.

Because of credits for time already served and good behavior while in custody, Castro would have been eligible for parole in three years.

Castro had been drinking at a Bakersfield bar and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17%, more than double the legal limit, when he drove his car into the U-Haul Koosh was towing on the Golden State Freeway near Santa Clarita.

Koosh had graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York in 1996 and had embarked on a solo cross-country trip back home to Southern California, where he was to begin working for NASA in Huntington Beach.

He was killed on the last leg of that trip.