A Lewiston man has been sentenced to a year in jail for the automobile homicide last year of a 19-month-old British Columbia girl who was playing in the road.
"It's something I'll have to live with the rest of my life - the death of a child and the sorrow of the parents . . .. It's a terrible thing," Vaughan Blair said before 1st District Judge Ben Hadfield on Wednesday.Blair, 61, was driving his pickup truck in Lewiston on April 19, 1994, when he struck and killed Kayzia D. Fawcett, who was turning circles in front of a relative's home she was visiting.
"It's just something you can't take back, but you'd like to," Blair said, with head bowed and hands clasped in front of him.
Prosecutors said Blair never saw the girl and that he was driving with a blood alcohol level of .11 percent. The legal limit in Utah is .08.
Blair pleaded guilty last month to automobile homicide because he did not want to put the girl's parents, himself and his family "through the upheaval of a trial," said his attorney, Brian Florence.
Florence also pointed out that Blair has no prior offenses.
Hadfield sentenced Blair to one year in jail, saying the Fawcetts' compassion spared him from a 0-to-5-year prison sentence.
"I recognize a prison term likely would serve the best interests of society," Hadfield said. "But I think it would compound the tragedy for the defendant and the parents, and I'm not willing to do that.
"This little girl's parents are the reason you're not going to prison," Hadfield told Blair.
Kayzia's parents were not in court Wednesday, although they were there when Blair pleaded guilty.
At that proceeding, prosecutor Jeff Burbank said the Fawcetts had told him numerous times that although they felt a deep loss for their daughter, "they feel . . . that asking him (Blair) to be locked up or imprisoned isn't going to bring their daughter back."
Hadfield ordered Blair to serve three years probation, pay a $1,480 fine and stay away from alcohol. He also is to submit to warrantless search and seizures and random chemical testing, and to make full restitution for the girl's medical and funeral costs.