Judge Denies Prosecutor’s Plea; Drunk Driver Gets 12-Year Term

A judge sentenced an eight-time drunk driver to 12 years in prison Monday for killing a 22-year-old engineer in a traffic accident, saying a prosecutor’s request to add new allegations punishable by life in prison came too late.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Asari said he and another prosecutor were ignorant of a 1997 law that punishes repeat drunk drivers who kill someone while driving under the influence with 15 years to life in prison.

As a result, they did not request that Johnny Castro be sentenced under the law, called Courtney’s law, until his sentencing hearing Monday.

At that hearing, Asari asked the judge to allow him to amend the complaint against Castro, citing appeals court cases in which prosecutors were allowed to do so based on new evidence.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Meredith C. Taylor noted that in this case there was no new evidence. She ruled that adding the change now “would be a mistake,” which would violate Castro’s right to due process.

But she said she thought Castro’s 20-year record of drunk driving and theft-related offenses earned him the maximum prison term allowable.

Because of credits for time already served and good behavior while in custody, Castro could be eligible for parole in three years.

“He was a son that would make any parent proud,” Zhilla Koosh, the victim’s mother, told the judge during Monday’s hearing. “I constantly ask myself, why should a life so full of promise have to be cut short by someone as evil as Castro, who has no decency in his own life?”

She listed Mahdad Koosh’s achievements: hired by NASA on an astronaut career track, volunteer firefighter, commercial helicopter pilot, survivor of devastating burns during a childhood household accident. As she spoke, Dan Koosh held up poster-sized photographs of his son standing next to his Jeep before the accident, then the mangled Jeep and Koosh lying in a coma after the January 1998 crash on the Golden State Freeway near Santa Clarita.

They vowed to pressure authorities to appeal.

“The laws were made to be used,” Dan Koosh said after the hearing. “Just because the D.A. made a mistake doesn’t mean you don’t use the law.”

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Castro, 38, said in court that he felt “heartfelt sorrow” for the family, but complained at length that he had been wrongfully convicted. Castro’s criminal record includes convictions for theft and receiving stolen property as well as eight convictions for driving drunk between 1984 and 1990.

The parents of 15-year-old drunk-driving victim Courtney Meyer, for whom the sentencing law was named, said they are stunned that prosecutors could have missed using it.

“I thought that when it became law--that’s it--that when they’d open the books to it, they’d see it,” said Clay Meyer, who went to San Fernando Superior Court on Monday to support the Kooshes. “We worked so hard on it and to not see it used is very disappointing.”

But lawyers don’t always look up the statute when they file a case, said Roger Gunson, a director in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office who oversees prosecutors in branch offices, including the office that prosecuted Castro.

“We file 60,000 cases per year,” Gunson said. “After you’ve filed so many cases, you are so aware of [the law] there’s no reason to go back to it” and read it.

As a result of the Castro case, he said all deputy district attorneys will be reminded about Courtney’s law. He said the district attorney’s office ensures cases are filed properly by updating manuals, having supervising deputy district attorneys review filings and offering training on new laws, crime charging and sentencing.

Prosecutors charged Castro with second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. Jurors convicted him of the latter charge.

Castro’s defense had been that he wasn’t driving. He contended that a man he had met at a bar was behind the wheel and the man fled after the accident.