Sentencing delayed for killer of 2
Daniel Wade Resler was drunk when his vehicle struck Flathead teens in March 2007
The sentencing hearing for a drunken driver who hit and killed two Flathead Valley teenagers near Plains a year ago has been rescheduled for March 18.
It originally had been scheduled for Tuesday.
Daniel Wade Resler, 32, has admitted killing 19-year-old Brad Michael Williams of Somers and 16-year-old Kyle David McCullugh of Kalispell as they walked to a convenience store.
Pursuant to a plea agreement, Resler may serve as little as one year in Montana State Prison - a deal the victims' families say doesn't serve justice.
"Someone's dropping the ball somewhere," said Leo McCullugh, Kyle's father.
District Court Judge Kim Christopher, however, is not obligated to observe the plea arrangement.
The new hearing is at 10 a.m. March 18 at the Sanders County Courthouse in Thompson Falls. The original hearing date, March 4, conflicts with the weeklong trial of Douglas James Guill, who is accused of imprisoning a woman and sexually abusing her for 16 years. Judge Christopher is presiding over the Guill trial.
In exchange for Resler's guilty pleas to two counts of vehicular homicide, prosecutors are recommending that he receive two 30-year prison sentences - each with 25 years suspended - to run concurrently.
He would be incarcerated for at least one year before becoming eligible for the WATCh program, an intensive, six-month treatment regimen for felony DUI offenders at Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs.
After completing the program, Resler would be considered for placement in a pre-release center or other intensive supervision program.
"Justice to me … after killing two young men is not a year and a half," Williams' mother, Carla Hayek, has said. "I think he should serve one year for every year of life he took."
Leo McCullugh called the proposed sentence ridiculous.
"Two fine young men, boys, lost their lives and there should be some kind of penalty for that," he said. "A year is just a slap in the face to the families, I believe."
"I would like to see him do, minimum, 15 years in prison and then treatment programs after that," he added.
McCullugh echoed Hayek's beliefs that the whole case has been mishandled from the start. Despite promises, the families weren't consulted before the plea deal was struck, he said. Requests for a change of venue weren't even considered.
"Now they don't even return our calls," he said.
Sanders County Attorney Coleen I. Magera has said the plea agreement was reached in light of "several evidentiary concerns that had to be considered in the negotiations."
Hayek said she believes Magera was referring to a blood sample taken from Resler at Clark Fork Valley Hospital, which she was told may have been mislabeled or left briefly unattended.
Magera has not returned repeated calls for comment.
According to the Montana Highway Patrol, Resler was driving a 2003 Dodge pickup westbound on Montana 200 just before 2 a.m. March 3, 2007.
At a curve about a mile east of Plains, Resler drifted off the right side of the highway and struck Williams and McCullugh, who were walking westbound in the gravel on the side of the road. Resler's blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
Williams died at the scene; McCullugh was flown to St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, where he died the next day.
The proposed sentence for Resler also has a community service component that will require Resler to clean a one-mile stretch of Montana 200 near where the collision occurred, make $100 donations in the names of Williams and McCullugh annually to the Montana chapter of Mothers against Drunk Driving, and work with either that organization or local schools on drinking and driving education for the next decade.
Resler is free on bond pending the sentencing hearing.
Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com