Thank You For Visiting My Fight For Criminal Justice Page.
Like the other page I will be writing a brief description of what has taken place in our fight for criminal justice followed by detailed information about the case.
Thank You For Visiting My Fight For Criminal Justice Page.
Like the other page I will be writing a brief description of what has taken place in our fight for criminal justice followed by detailed information about the case.
In February 2001 I was searching the internet for victims rights organization. I came upon a website called POMC.com "Parents of Murdered Children". On their website the have a place where you can ask experts questions. That day I was a bit upset that Cort Childs received all the free counseling and yet witness' that seen Michael get hit didn't receive anything. One of their experts was a man named Steve Twist who is the Chief Counsel for the National Victims Constitutional Amendment Network nvcan I wrote to Mr Twist asking him why none of the witness' were given counseling and why I had no say as to criminal charges. He wrote back to me and couldn't believe at the injustice that was going on.
We corresponded over the next few months. In May of 2001 he contacted Paul Cassell a Law Professor from the University of Utah to help out. On October 25, 2001 after several months of e-mailing back and forth Paul Cassell wrote me with what needed to be done in order to get criminal charges. What he said didn't bring me much hope that Cortland Childs would ever stand in front of a Judge. "The AG's office will be glad to review the matter, but the standard is "abuse of discretion". They rarely overturn what the line prosecutor has done, so I don't want to get anyone's hopes up unfairly. The AG's office is filled with fair minded people, but the hurdle we have to clear is a high one." Knowing this I was ready to push forward. I wrote a letter to the AG's office asking them to do an independent review and mailed it to them in November of 2002. About a month later on December 12, 2001 the AG's office contacted Mr Cassell to inform him that because of a conflict of interest (they are defending Cort Childs in the Civil case) they were going to refer the case to the Utah County Prosecutor's office for review.
On January 15, 2002 Mr Cassell informed me that Sherry Regan a Prosecutor from Utah County is willing to meet with us to discuss and look at what evidence we had. On January 28th we met with Sherry Regan. Things went well with Ms. Regan. She agreed to review all the information and let us know what they decide.
February 2002, we again met with Ms Regan and John Easton. They informed us that indeed they were going to prosecute Cort Childs but didn't know if they would charge him with negligent homicide or automobile homicide.
Now we were looking forward to his initial appearance in court. That day came in August 2002. Our friends and family attended the hearing with us. Although it was brief it was so pleasing to us to here the Judge order Cort Childs to go down to the County Jail and be booked.
There was one other thing I didn't mention earlier. The Judge presiding over this case had to be brought in from another County because the Judges here (in my opinion couldn't be fair with us).
October 30, 2002 was the first big day. The preliminary hearing was set for this day. Before it even got started there were problems. One of your expert witness' was out of the country so he couldn't be there to testify. Then the Prosecutor's were going to have a UHP Trooper testify that Cortland Childs did not follow procedure the day he killed Michael. At the last minute this Trooper told the Prosecutor's his superior told him he better not testify against a former Trooper. Rumor was that he was told he would lose his job if he testified. Would anyone want to bet that the local Trooper "also a friend of Cort Childs" that stood outside the courtroom and talked to this man for an hour or so didn't have any influence on his decision not to testify?
The testimony from the witness' that did testify that day was pretty damaging. The first witness was the woman who stopped for Michael to cross the road. Her testimony clearly showed that Cort Childs was indeed negligent. Not to mention that she had all of us in tears when she gave her account of what happen. All of us except of course Cortland Childs who is heartless anyway.
The next person to testify was none other than Tracy Allred the "so called investigating officer". I have said all along that he was protecting Cort Childs and the Prosecutor's proved it. How this man can consider himself a police officer is beyond me. He testified that Childs didn't appear to be impaired after observing him for 2 minutes but then how would he even know because he has NO training in how to detect if a person is impaired on prescription drugs. He also tried to testify about how the accident happen but how can he be so sure when he has never had any training in accident reconstruction? At the end of the questioning the Prosecutor got Allred to admit that if things happen the way ALL the witness' claim they happened Cortland Childs should have been arrested. I will add more here when I get a copy of the transcripts.
There was also a toxicologist who testified that indeed Cort Childs had drugs in his system that could have made him impaired.
At this point the Prosecutors and Childs Attorney agreed to postpone the preliminary hearing so that they could get new witness' and all the paperwork together. The new hearing date was set for January 14, 2003.
The day of the continued preliminary hearing, I have to admit I was very nervous. I knew if the Judge didn't bound him over for trail he would walk and any hope for criminal justice was over. The Prosecutor only had one witness scheduled to testify and it was a toxicologist. To be perfectly honest I didn't really have a clue to what they were talking about most of the time. They used a lot of medical terms that I am not familiar with. This witness testified for about 2 hours then both sides rested and it was all up to the Judge.
When the Judge started speaking I was so nervous, I had a feeling he was going to bound it over for trail but then again I know what happen to us the last time. It seemed like the Judge talked forever and when he gave his first indication that the case was going to trail I began to cry. My 13 year old daughter who was sitting next to me asked why I was crying. I told her the case was going to be bound over, she asked "is that good" I told her yes and she said why you crying then. When the Judge finally said this case is to be bound over for trail the tears really began to flow. Everyone in the courtroom was so excited and relieved, some family members even began to applaud the Judges decision.
The trail date is scheduled to began July 14th and last a week, a verdict in this case could concidently be on the five year anniversary of Michael's death.
The following are a couple of links to articles that were written about this case.
As the months passed after the preliminary hearing I was getting nervous/excited about the trail that was scheduled to being July 14, 2000. In June the Prosecutor called me and said that Cortland Childs has decided to plead guilty to the lesser charge of Negligent Homicide. Under the condition that we don’t ask for any jail time. This was fine with me because I don’t believe serving one year in jail would do him or society any good.
On August 15, 2003 Cortland Childs stood in front of a Judge and pled guilty. I don’t know if hearing those words made me more angry or brought me joy.
After he pled guilty he finally apologized to me and my family. All I ever wanted was for him to admit some responsibility and say he was sorry. I was hoping that his apology would bring us some closure. It didn't I was untouched by his words. He tried to explain why he didn't contact us earlier but I don’t buy it. He said his Superiors and Attorney's told him not to contact us. Which I am sure they did tell him that. But how can you inflict such pain on a family and not say you are sorry because someone told you not to. To me this is a cop out and he thought more about his job then the pain my family was going through.
Sentencing is scheduled for October 1, 2003.
Sentencing was originally set for October 1, 2003 but of course there was a delay. We were told the day before court that Cortland Childs didn't know he had to have a pre-sentencing report done. I believe it was no more than a way for him to try and show he was above the law. New sentencing date December 3, 2003
On December 2 I received the pre-sentencing report and was totally disgusted with what they were recommending. A 500.00 fine, 12 months probation and a life skills class. This report victimized my family all over again. I had my impact statement written and was going to be fair but when I read that I immediately changed it.
December 3, 2003 the courtroom was packed, at least our side was. I was so nervous and didn't know that I would be the first one speaking. I got up in front of the Judge, shaking and could barely speak but I told him just how Cortland Childs ruined my families life and what I thought about the pre-sentencing report.
Going in there I knew that Cortland Childs would not spend one minute in jail because of the plea bargain. To be honest I didn't want him to go to jail. I did however want him to pay for what he did somehow. I asked for supervised probation, he lose his drivers license, fined to the fullest extent of the law ($2,500), community service work teaching children bicycle safety, he enter into drug rehab or pain management and restitution for Michael's funeral expenses. To me that isn't much for killing a child.
When everyone was done speaking the Judge began to render his sentence. He told me how sorry he was that I lost my son and then said he WAS NOT GOING WITH THE PRE-SENTENCING RECOMMENDATION. That was such a siegh of relief.
Cortland Childs was sentenced to: 36 months court probation, fined 1480.00 dollars, 500 community service hours, random drug tests and has to report all his medication to the Prosecutor.
That does sound like a lot but here is the catch. He moved to Massuchettes and they will not do a supervised probation if it is a misdemeanor charge. If Cortland Childs violates his court probation Utah cannot extradite him back on a misdemeanor. Therefore, he got away with the probation unless he violates it and happens to come back to Utah. I wanted so much for him to lose his drivers license and was upset that he didn't. Later I was told by the Prosecutor that she was going to contact Massuchettes and let them know that he was convicted and they there was a good chance that they would suspend it.
I wish I could say what the future holds for me and my family. I know there is still so much unfinished grieving we still have left to do.
My advice to anyone in a similar situation is "DONT EVER GIVE UP". If someone tells you there is nothing you can do DONT believe that. Keep looking someone somewhere will listen and help.