Judge Heeds Victim, Gives Driver 3 Years

A Sepulveda man was sentenced Wednesday to three years in state prison for driving while drunk and causing an accident that left a former California State University, Northridge, student, functioning at the level of a 12-year-old.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Richard G. Kolostian imposed the maximum sentence on Joe Allan Lively, 33, after the accident victim urged that Lively be sent to prison.

In halting speech, 22-year-old Michelle Sapper told Kolostian that she must undergo daily physical and speech therapy.

“Your honor, please, please find it in your heart to give this person the maximum sentence,” Sapper said. “He nearly killed me. I’m very, very lucky to be alive.”

Sapper then broke down in sobs and left the courtroom, which was filled with representatives of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

Kolostian, citing the defendant’s three previous drunk-driving convictions between 1974 and 1977, agreed that the case “cries out for the maximum” punishment.

Lively, a partner in a family-owned Chatsworth construction company, admitted that he had split a 12-pack of beer with a friend after leaving work on May 1, 1984, and later consumed two or three double margaritas.

Lively was traveling east on Plummer Street near Zelzah Avenue in Northridge when his pickup veered into oncoming traffic, colliding with Sapper’s head-on. Sapper was in a coma for two months.

Although Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Cahill Peace argued that Lively’s intoxication caused him to drift into oncoming traffic, defense attorney Bruce C. Hill maintained that a steering mechanism, which was found to be broken after the crash, could have severed before impact, causing Lively to lose control of the vehicle.

The jury found Lively guilty on Dec. 10 of driving under the influence of alcohol and causing injury.

Sapper told a probation officer that her memory has suffered because of the accident and that she sometimes forgets who her parents are.

Lively told the same probation officer that he dreams about the crash and that, every time he adjusts a gold chain he wears around his neck, “he makes a wish that she will be healthy and normal someday,” the report says.