Sentencing Rules Gall Hit-Run Victims

Rafael Claro-Miranda can admit he caused a hit-and-run accident that killed the mother of six children and severely injured another man in exchange for a six-year prison sentence. If he opts for a trial, he could face 7 1/2 years in prison.

Either way, victims of the hit-and-run say the pain caused by the tragedy far outweighs the punishment that the suspect, Claro-Miranda, could get.

Agustin Luz says he cannot walk much, and is mostly confined to a wheelchair. His children cannot sit on his lap because of the pain.

Even worse, he said, is the notion that Claro-Miranda may spend as little as three years in prison, taking into account time off for good behavior.

“He killed a woman and injured me,” said Luz, 29. “He killed a mother of six children. Six years for such a crime is . . . it is not enough.”

On May 16, Luz was helping Sharon McPherson refuel her stalled car near Burbank High School when Claro-Miranda’s vehicle allegedly crushed the two, killing McPherson and seriously injuring Luz.

Claro-Miranda, 35, of Burbank, is now sitting in jail, pondering the latest offer made by Los Angeles County district attorneys: plead guilty and be sentenced to six years in prison.

Claro-Miranda’s lawyer, Albert Sierra, said his client has a clean record and deserves the minimum sentence--two years. But when prosecutors offered Claro-Miranda a two-year deal last month, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz found the punishment too light and rejected it.

If he chooses to go to trial and is found guilty, Claro-Miranda would face a maximum of 7 1/2 years in prison for vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run, said Craig Mitchell, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the suspect.

Sentencing rules are “highly complex,” Mitchell said. Because Claro-Miranda is charged with two felony hit-and-run counts, for instance, state rules stipulate that the charges should be “merged” and that only one-third of the second charge can be applied, not the full term, he said.

“It’s confusing, but these rules further reduce the exposure of Mr. Miranda,” Mitchell said. “It’s extremely frustrating from the prosecution’s perspective.”

Asked why his office had originally offered two years, Mitchell said prosecutors at first thought they might not be able to win the case before a jury.

Cases of fatal hit-and-run are less common than in years past, according to the California Highway Patrol. But they are still devastating, leaving human and metal wreckage behind and survivors who cannot forget the bone-smashing crunch inflicted by a 2,000-pound vehicle.

Hit-and-run fatalities in Los Angeles County have been declining since 1994, when 154 people died in such accidents, the most in the last six years. The county is on course to see roughly 90 such fatalities this year, compared with 120 hit-and-run deaths in 1996.

But a recent spate of such deaths has prompted widespread media coverage of the accidents nonetheless. Victims and their families care little for the optimistic statistics, however.

“Three of us saw it happen,” said Suzi Rucker, 18, one of McPherson’s daughters. “They first offered him [Claro-Miranda] two years, now six. It is not enough. I will never be able to see my mother again. Mr. Luz can’t walk.”

Despite his obvious anger with the possible sentence for Claro-Miranda, Luz’s attitude, according to those who know him and his situation, is astounding. This, after all, is a man who stayed in a hospital bed for nearly two months while wearing a metal brace around his head, endured the ache of pins in his fractured pelvis and cracks in bones from his ankles to his spine.

“I’m walking a little bit,” he said cheerily. “But it’s slow. I try to get better every day.”

Helping him, and McPherson’s six children, is a Burbank community that has begun a modest foundation and provided the Luzes with food and comfort.

Suzi Rucker and her siblings are now living in Ohio with relatives. “If it helps the case, helps us heal, I’d love to come back and testify,” Rucker said. “It happened right in front of us, even if it was dark out. There were no skid marks, none. He didn’t even try to stop. That makes me angry.”

Sentencing laws also make the victims angry.

“I don’t understand them,” Luz said. “Why so little time for so much pain?”