Suban Mohamed and Alaina Moreno had an animals club.
The Ogden next-door neighbors would get their stuffed animals together, dress them and name them.Suban called Alaina "Cat."
Alaina called Suban "Cool Cat."
On Monday, Alaina, 9, was at 3rd District Court wearing a sign with a picture of Suban. It read: "A Drunk Driver Killed My Best Friend."
Alaina was one of about 100 friends and relatives who wore signs and likenesses of Suban. They came to courtroom W46 to hear what sentence Judge Tyrone E. Medley would hand down to Brad L. Barnson, 40, of Salt Lake City, the driver convicted of causing the accident that killed Suban, 7.
Medley imposed the maximum allowable sentences for the crimes to which Barnson pleaded guilty: zero to five years in the Utah State Prison for automobile homicide, a third-degree felony; one year each for two counts of driving under the influence, both class A misdemeanors.
Medley ordered the terms to run consecutively. He also imposed fines of $5,000 for the felony charge and $2,500 each on the misdemeanors.
Medley ordered Barnson to pay restitution of $255,795 to Habiba Nur and Abdinasir Abdulle, Suban's mother and father, and James Kirkpatrick, the driver of a third car in the accident whose injuries are so severe his attorneys argued he will require lifelong institutional care.
"This is one of those situations where I feel totally helpless," Medley told Nur and Abdulle, and a courtroom jammed with supporters of Kirkpatrick and Suban. "There is no way I can come close to releasing Mr. Kirkpatrick or Suban's family from their grief."
Medley said he felt he had no alternative but to commit Barnson to the maximum jail time in keeping with sentencing guidelines. In doing so, he rebuffed extenuating-circumstance arguments by defense attorney Rebecca C. Hyde that Barnson was mentally impaired from childhood hydroencephalitis and was functionally illiterate.
Medley said Barnson had demonstrated a pattern of operating vehicles under the influence of alcohol and stressed that was a key factor in the sentencing.
The decision only partly satisfied Nur and Abdulle, both of whom delivered impassioned courtroom pleas for maximum sentencing.
"Halfway," Abdulle said. "The judge did the best he could under the guidelines, but I don't think seven years is enough to compensate. My daughter. The man who will need a lifetime of care. Those lives are gone. They'll never come back."
"I would like to see life in prison for a crime such as this," Nur said. "My daughter was very intelligent. She was beautiful. She had lots of friends. She had dreams. All that is done. So it should be for him, too."
Suban's family expressed particularly deep resentment that Barnson had made no attempt to show concern or remorse -- either at the time of the Jan. 3, 1998, accident or since.
According to police reports, Barnson was eastbound on North Temple near 1300 West driving a pickup truck towing a wooden trailer when he made a left turn in front of a westbound car driven by off-duty Salt Lake police officer Mark Faulkner.
Faulkner's car collided with the truck, which had its headlights off at dusk. On impact, the trailer disconnected and rolled south, crossing westbound lanes of traffic, according to police reports. A westbound car driven by Kirkpatrick swerved to avoid hitting the trailer and ran head-on into a sport utility vehicle driven by Maslah Mohamed, police said.
Witnesses told police they saw Barnson and his uncle, Don Harwood, who was in a trailing vehicle, running from the wreckage trying to dispose of beer cans.
"All he thought of was himself in that moment and that's all he has thought of since," said prosecutor Mark S. Kouris.
The stocky, sandy-haired Barnson stood solidly in the courtroom, usually facing forward, showing little emotion. He said nothing to the families of Suban or Kirkpatrick.
However, Hyde asked a sister of Barnson's to read a statement of apology.
"Every single morning you are the first thing I think of and you are the last thing I think of when I go to bed at night," the statement read. "All day long I cannot forget the horrible accident I caused. I've seen the pain I've caused my family. I can't imagine how you must be feeling, and I am so very sorry for everything."
Hyde added, "Mr. Barnson wishes it was he who died in the accident instead of little Suban. This is not a callous man."
Suban's family and friends dismissed the 11th-hour apology as too little, too late and a transparent attempt by a guilty man to curry the court's favor.
"He never once came back to see how we were doing," said Khadra Ali, 18, a cousin of Suban's who suffered several broken bones in the accident.
"Suban's little sister (Maryan, 4) had her teeth knocked out. He was too busy getting rid of the alcohol to help," Khadra said. "Now he tries to say he's sorry. To me that's stupid."
Abdulle, an economics professor at Weber State University, said, "The drunk driver is a killer who does not choose his victim. He is a danger to society, and he always will be unless we stand up to him. But the law is not strict enough, so he is not given reason enough to stop. I don't forgive him forever."
Friends and family of Suban, most from the local Somali community, gathered in the hallway outside the courtroom after Medley's decision, consoling one another.
"She was extremely smart and beautiful and just the sweetest child you can possibly imagine," Krista Moreno, Alaina's mother, said of Suban.
"She was really good at the monkey bars on the playground," said Abiwalli Ali, 9, Suban's cousin.
"She was real good at art and real good at naming animals," Alaina Moreno said. "We were best friends for two years. Now we can't play anymore."