4/9/2016 ~ 7 pm near Kadota Avenue and Saguaro Street, Casa Grande, AZ.
Victim: 20 y.o. Emily Akins.
Driver: suspect Christina Rascon, 40 has been arrested in connection with the hit and run.
Casa Grande police arrest suspect in fatal hit-and-run
Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, The Republic | azcentral.com 5:18 p.m. MST April 10, 2016
A woman has been arrested for investigation of manslaughter stemming from a hit-and-run collision that killed a bicyclist in Casa Grande Saturday evening, police said.
Christina Rascon, 40, of Casa Grande, was being held in connection with the death of 20-year-old Emily Akins, Casa Grande police said Sunday.
The collision occurred near Kadota Avenue and Saguaro Street in Casa Grande, police said. Officers arrived to find the bicyclist severely injured. She later died at a nearby hospital, police said, adding that the driver involved in the crash fled the scene.
Police said interviews with witnesses led officers to Rascon, whose blue Chevrolet Equinox was found to have front-end damage.
Police said Rascon showed signs of impairment and was taken to the Pinal County Adult Detention Center and was held on suspicion of manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal collision and DUI.
The Criminal Case
CR-201601058 ; ST OF AZ VS RASCON. Pinal County Superior, filed 4/13/2016; and listed as MANSLAUGHTER-CAUSED BY RECKLESSNESS; 3/24/2017; GUILTY I’m not sure what records are available via Pinal Co Sup court, and don’t otherwise see anything about sentencing.
The defendant also has a string of traffic cases in Casa Grande Muni, and some justice courts. Why is her driving history not a factor in sentencing?
Very interesting, at this page (need click on “download” button to get full report) is the complete pre-sentencing report.
Here’s a news item about the sentencing: “The judge sentenced her to nine years in prison and seven years on supervised probation after her release. Rascon’s driving privileges will also be subject to revocation.” This definitely sounds light, more on that in a minute. There are some weird sick details, like after the crash, after she fled the scene she went and bought beer.
I don’t completely understand it but the strange number of years (e.g. the report recommends an “aggravated term of eight years”, which for a dangerous F2 would be far longer) has to do with the plea deal being non-dangerous. I think this is bad and wrong; drunk driving and causing a wreck that kills someone not just a crime but an obviously dangerous one. And as usual the hit-and-run yields NO incarceration. If prosecutors want to ratchet down the time, they should go for a lesser charge, like neg hom, a class 4 — a dangerous class 4 sentence ranges from 4 to 8 years; could have honestly yielded the same sentence instead of this “non-dangerous” subterfuge.
More about sentencing here.