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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Twice in the first three days after a tough new Nevada law made prison mandatory for drivers convicted of fleeing a crash causing death or serious injury, police in Las Vegas began investigating hit-and-run wrecks for which the statute may apply.
"Absolutely," Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson responded when asked Monday if prosecutors could bring felony charges in the separate crashes that left a 5-year-old girl injured on Friday and a motorcyclist dead on Saturday. Arrests haven't been made, and police haven't sought criminal complaints or warrants.
The new law, passed by the state Legislature earlier this year, makes the penalty for felony hit-and-run in Nevada the same as for felony drunk driving: A mandatory two years in prison, with no chance for probation.
"There were these horrific crashes ... people were being left in the street to die and the drivers were driving away and getting away with murder," said Sandy Heverly, longtime head of the Nevada advocacy group Stop DUI, which led the push for the change. "It was like murder at random."
The law, sponsored by state Sen. Mark Manendo, aims at discouraging motorists from gambling that they can avoid a drunken driving prosecution by fleeing a crash causing injury or death until they had time to sober up.
"I think people realize the penalties for DUI are really harsh," the Democrat from Las Vegas said in a recent interview. "It was less of a crime to be questioned a day or two days later, when they couldn't be tested for impairment. Now, there's no incentive to run away from the scene."
Manendo and Heverly said they hoped the law was the strictest in the nation.
But Amanda Essex, a researcher at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, said state-by-state comparisons are impossible due to variations in legal wording and sentencing structures around the country.
"Factors such as judicial discretion and sentencing enhancements, among others, can factor into the severity of a potential sentence," Essex said.
Brian Rutledge, a vehicular crimes prosecutor in Las Vegas, noted that in Nevada, felony leaving the scene used to carry a possible two-to-15 year prison sentence. But judges could also sentence the convicted felon to probation. And only one charge would apply, no matter how many people were hurt or injured.
"We were getting more and more people fleeing the scene," Rutledge said. "Now it's smarter, even selfish to stay and call 911 and make sure the people who are hurt get assistance. Fleeing the scene carries the same penalty as DUI — or greater, if you're convicted of both."
A felony leaving the scene conviction calls for a mandatory two-to-20 year sentence — just like felony driving under the influence causing death or serious injury. Both can also be multiplied by the number of people dead or injured.
The Nevada Department of Transportation tallied 341 people killed and 780 seriously injured in crashes blamed on impaired drivers in Nevada between 2009 and 2013. Seven out of 10 fatalities blamed on impaired driving happened in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, according to DOT Strategic Highway Safety Plan statistics published in March.
No one knew Monday if a woman seen getting out of a red Chevrolet Aveo sedan was impaired by drugs or alcohol Friday afternoon when she looked at where a 5-year-old girl had been struck and injured crossing a street in The Lakes residential neighborhood. The driver then got back in the vehicle and drove away.
The vehicle was found Saturday, abandoned in a northwest Las Vegas shopping center parking lot.
In a separate case, a male driver is being sought after running on foot from a Hummer H2 that crashed into a motorcycle Saturday night at busy Charleston Boulevard and Sacramento Drive. Police said the motorcyclist was killed and a passenger was critically injured. A 23-year-old passenger in the Hummer remained at the scene and was being questioned by police.
Not everyone favors increasing the penalty for leaving the scene of an accident.
Veteran Las Vegas defense attorney William Terry represented Selina Gonzalez-Gascon, now 22 and serving four-to-10 years in prison after hitting and killing a construction zone flagger last November in Henderson.
Gonzalez-Gascon pleaded guilty to felony drunken driving, and had been accused of continuing to drive after striking Marilyn Rouse. She was stopped by members of the construction crew. Gonzalez-Gascon was initially charged with leaving the scene, but the charge was dropped when she pleaded guilty to DUI.
"I don't agree with any sentence that takes the discretion away from the judge," Terry said. "Every individual and every case is different."
Gonzalez-Gascon had been attending college, lived with her parents and had no prior criminal record, Terry said. But she got mandatory jail time.
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Associated Press writer Michelle Rindels in Carson City, Nev., contributed to this report.
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