Thread: Illegal immigrant to plead guilty in fatal DUI case

Monday, 04/09/07

Illegal immigrant to plead guilty in fatal DUI case
Deadly wreck after 14 other arrests fueled anger over flaws in system

By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer

By pleading guilty as expected today in a Nashville courtroom, Gustavo Reyes Garcia could end the criminal case stemming from charges that his drunken driving killed two people last year.

But the court appearance is unlikely to sate the firestorm of hostility toward illegal immigrants that galvanized after his June 8, 2006, wreck on Old Hickory Boulevard.


Garcia, 29, is charged with driving drunk when his SUV slammed head-on into a sedan driven by a Mt. Juliet couple, killing them both.

After the crash, authorities revealed that Garcia — a citizen of Mexico in the U.S. illegally — had been arrested at least 14 times before, including four times for driving drunk.

The tale of government inefficiency that allowed him to remain in Tennessee after so many contacts with law enforcement fueled public outrage and changed the social landscape for other undocumented immigrants in the Midstate.

"It was the case that brought to our attention ... the flaw in the system," Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said.

A new program to check the immigration status of every foreign-born person booked into Metro Jail is expected to be fully under way next week.

Several Hispanic activists have said that Garcia's case became a stereotype used to support an ideology of hatred. The case was more an illustration of the failure of the system to provide stiffer penalties for repeat traffic violators, some have said.

Guilty plea expected

Garcia was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide while intoxicated and evading arrest. Court officials said he has reached a deal with prosecutors and will plead guilty today, the same day the trial was scheduled to begin. His lawyer, Assistant Metro Public Defender Glenn Dukes, did not return a call seeking comment.

Garcia is being held at the Metro Jail under an immigration hold, which means he'll be turned over to federal authorities after any criminal sentence he might serve.

But Garcia was well known to law enforcement before the fatal accident.

County records show that he had been booked into the Metro Jail on at least 14 different occasions since 1997.

Besides the DUI cases, he had been charged with domestic assault, leaving the scenes of accidents, driving on a revoked or suspended license, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, theft, failing to have insurance and driving with an open container.

On at least one occasion, local authorities said, Garcia was flagged by federal authorities and deported, only to return and resume his streak of arrests.

The other times, Garcia went to court, was jailed for some period and released. Sheriff's officials said they routinely sent notification to federal immigration authorities that they had booked a foreign-born inmate.

But federal officials typically did not do formal checks of the prisoners' immigration status unless the crime was extremely serious, Hall has said.

Until recent weeks, local officers did not have the federal computer system required to check an inmate's immigration status.

"It has become a motivator to get a solution in place quickly, and the good news is, although slow for the public, it's pretty fast for government work," Hall said.

Erratic driving reported

Garcia had been driving erratically before the deadly crash, according to neighbors in his Madison neighborhood.

Less than an hour before the tragedy, Virginia Phelps was sitting with her husband, Morris, in the front yard of their Anderson Lane home.

They watched as Garcia, who lived just a few houses down at 814 Anderson Lane, sped down the street in his red SUV and struck their mailbox, she said.

"It tore it completely down, and the mailbox went all to pieces," Phelps said. "He took the post and everything."

Garcia didn't stop, she said.

A short while later, Lakewood Police Chief Lawrence Lee says he spotted Garcia weaving in and out of traffic on Old Hickory Boulevard, outside Lakewood City Hall.

Lee says he pulled over the SUV. Garcia, he would later testify, appeared drunk and there were several bottles and cans of beer in the truck.

But before he could be arrested, Garcia sped away and crashed into a blue Oldsmobile, authorities said. The SUV then crossed Old Hickory Boulevard and collided with a silver Buick.

The driver of the Buick, Sean Paul Wilson, 38, died at the scene. His wife, Donna Wilson, 47, was pronounced dead at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

In a year when the issue of illegal immigration was the subject of congressional debate, Garcia's case focused attention locally on the problem of illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Crimes spur legislation

The Wilsons' daughter became an outspoken critic of illegal immigration.

"Part of the shock of this tragedy is ... learning that there are simply no laws in place at the local or state level to aid deportation of serial criminals who are illegal aliens," Heather Steffek said during a campaign appearance for an unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate.

Garcia's story was followed by other high-profile cases involving illegal immigrants.

In August, a mandolin maker for the Gibson guitar company was killed in a crash that police said was caused by an illegal immigrant who had been drinking.

That same month, an immigrant from Mexico was ar-rested and accused of the beating and strangulation death of his 74-year-old neighbor.

In September, a 16-year-old boy who had been deported and returned illegally was accused of stabbing to death a mother and her teenaged daughter who lived next door.

Also last year, the FBI captured a Mexican man who fled to his home country after being accused of a series of rapes in the Midstate.

The state legislature took up a flurry of bills aimed at illegal immigrants.

Theresa Harmon, of Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies, said Garcia's case helped add urgency to the issue of immigration reform.

"It definitely put the problem in the limelight here in Middle Tennessee," she said.

"It's like dangerous intersections where there are no real traffic controls. Historically it has taken someone being killed before the problem was addressed. ... I think we're looking at the same thing here."

Gustavo Garcia, illegal immigrant, pleads guilty to vehicular homicide, prompting 287g
By Jared Allen, jallen@nashvillecitypaper.com
April 09, 2007

In a deal finalized early Monday, Gustavo Garcia agreed to plead guilty to the two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide that killed Sean and Donna Wilson on June 8, 2006. He was sentenced to a total of 25 years in state prison.

Garcia was scheduled to go to trial this morning but instead opted to enter guilty pleas to four of the seven criminal counts he was facing.

In addition to the two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, Garcia pled guilty to two lesser felonies, reckless aggravated assault with a motor vehicle and evading arrest.

Criminal court judge Randall Wyatt confirmed the 25-year sentence as well as Garcia’s status as a range one offender.

Garcia’s range-one offender status means he will be eligible for parole after 30 percent of his sentence or in seven and a half years.

When released from prison, federal authorities will deport Garcia to Mexico.

Authorities first learned of Garcia’s status as an illegal immigrant only after his arrest following the June 8 wreck, in which Garcia was found to be driving with a blood alcohol level of .34, more than 4 times the legal limit in Tennessee.

Yet from 1997 on, Garcia had 17 prior arrests in Davidson County. Including driving infractions and three DUIs.

The revelation that a serial drunk driver was never identified as an illegal immigrant eventually led to Nashville’s adoption of a federal immigration-screening program known as 287g and which is scheduled to become fully operational next week.

For more information, read tomorrow’s edition of The City Paper.

http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index ... s_id=55567

Garcia’s range-one offender status means he will be eligible for parole after 30 percent of his sentence or in seven and a half years.

After the crash, authorities revealed that Garcia — a citizen of Mexico in the U.S. illegally — had been arrested at least 14 times before, including four times for driving drunk.

The tale of government inefficiency that allowed him to remain in Tennessee...

14 Times! 4 For DUI's. I wonder how many more deaths could have been prevented by locking up or deporting illegal aliens?