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| capcartel.eu |
It was an impact statement about a moment of impact.
“In one single second, my best friend, my wife .. my entire world came crashing down,” Dan Jenkins said, describing the horror as he watched a Kenworth tractor slam into a car driven by his wife on a rural Central Florida road in 2011.
And it had the desired impact.
Circuit Court Judge Marcus Ezelle sentenced Michael John Phillips, 52, to life in prison plus 15 years for DUI manslaughter in the deaths of Jennifer Jenkins, 35, and Kathleen O’Callaghan, 34.
The two friends from their days as schoolgirls in Naples were killed as they drove toward Orlando for the birthday party of another friend.
Dan Jenkins was following in a second vehicle, the couple’s 2-month-old daughter with him.
Phillips, found guilty by a Hardee County jury in August, could have been sentenced to as little as 25 years, according to state sentencing guidelines. But eight family members and friends gave victim impact statements at Friday’s sentencing, each asking Ezelle to impose the maximum penalty of life in prison.
Ezelle went symbolically further, pronouncing a life sentence for one count of DUI manslaughter and an additional 15 years for the second.
Phillips, dressed in white and gray striped jail garb and shackles, a sharp contrast to the dark suit and tie he wore at the jury trial, sat impassively through the hearing. A few of his family members sat in the back of the courtroom during the hearing, but he didn’t acknowledge them. They left without speaking to reporters.
About 30 friends and family members of the two victims attended the hearing.
They were regularly moved to tears as one witness after another recounted the lives of the two young women, their friendship and the futures denied to Jenkins, a nurse at NCH, and O’Callaghan, an international aid worker with Save the Children.
Jennifer Jenkins mother, Sharon Mahar, said the happiest day of her life was the day Jennifer was born. The saddest was Dec. 30, 2011, when she was killed.
“She was needlessly taken from this world,” Mahar said. “This individual (Phillips) made a choice. That choice ended two lives.”
Carol O’Callaghan, Kathleen’s sister, said the crash will affect her and the others for the rest of their lives.
“I was supposed to grow old with my sister,” she said. "I’ll never get to relive those memories with her. I’ll never get to be an aunt. I’ll never get to hold those nieces and nephews. Katie and Jen didn’t die in an accident, they were killed by the defendant."
Dan Jenkins’ brother, Doug, talked about helping his brother through the first days after the crash, including a trip to the scene.
“You never plan to help your brother plan a funeral,” he said. "You don’t plan to go with your father to the vehicle itself to find a few of the personal items. I saw the vehicle, but I kept it to myself because nobody should have to endure that."
In Florida, judges must sentence defendants based on a score tabulated in a pre-sentence investigation.
Phillips’ score was 364.4. Had it been 363 or lower, a life sentence would not have been an option. Factors that boosted his score included drug arrests dating 30 years, a refused drug test while free on bond in this case and then absconding on that bond, which delayed the case for several months while authorities searched for him.
Defense attorney Kelley Collier asked Ezelle for a sentence of less than life in prison, in part because Phillips was just over the points threshold.
He said Phillips, who tested positive for methamphetamine in his system, basically fell asleep at the wheel of the truck.
“He does not have a conscious recollection of the accident,” he told Ezelle.
Falling asleep at the wheel is not a reaction one would expect from using methamphetamine, Collier said.
“I would argue that the facts are not the kind of facts that would warrant that kind of (life) sentence,” Collier said.
Ezelle said the fact that Phillips didn’t intend to cause the crash wasn’t relevant. The manslaughter conviction, by its nature, presumes the guilty party didn’t premeditate the crime. Instead, the case was about creating risk that endangered others.
“Mr. Phillips, by his decisions, weaponized a commercial vehicle,” Ezelle said.
Collier said he plans to file an appeal of Phillips' conviction, based in part on expert testimony he said should have been disallowed at trial.
Family members had been frustrated by the slow pace of the case. It took investigators almost a year to charge Phillips. Friday’s sentencing occurred just two days shy of the fifth anniversary of those charges being formally filed in court.
After the hearing, the large group planned an outing to a local barbecue restaurant they discovered on one of the many trips they made to Wauchula, attending every hearing in the case.
“What a great day, after all this time,” Mahar said.
Dan Jenkins said the life sentence will make it easier to explain the tragedy to his daughter, Ashley, now almost 6, when she asks about her “Momma Jen.”
“Now I can tell her the man is in jail for the rest of his life. I can look at her and say that man will never hurt anybody again.”
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