WA drunk driver had 2 chances to learn a lesson. His next trip is to prison
A Walla Walla man had two chances to learn his lesson about drinking and driving.
But Judge Diana Ruff said Jesus Avalos-Chavez took the wrong lesson from his DUI-related convictions in the late 2000s.
He received no punishment in those cases and thought it was OK to again drink and drive again on March 5, 2021.
That’s when he crossed the center line on Highway 14 south of the Tri-Cities, killing 68-year-old Manuel Guajardo Jr. in a head-on collision.
“I’ve never seen any remorse. You didn’t even take an opportunity here today to say you’re sorry,” Ruff noted this week as she sentenced him to the maximum possible sentence. “All I’ve ever heard from you was what an injustice this has been for you.”
This time the judge ordered the maximum term.
She sentenced Avalos-Chavez was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in a Washington state prison, a little over a month after a jury found him guilty of vehicular homicide.
Avalos-Chavez had represented himself as his own attorney at the six-day trial but Monday refused to speak to the judge and Guajardo’s family in the courtroom before he was sentenced.
Avalos-Chavez was heading east on the highway in his GMC Sierra pickup six miles east of Paterson near the Oregon border when he slammed into a 2000 Volkswagen Beetle just before midnight. Guajardo died before Washington State Patrol troopers arrived.
Guajardo of Kennewick was a machine operator who had lived in the Tri-Cities for 61 years.
The Pasco High grad had worked at the Hanford site and at Boise Cascade before going to work at Columbia Crest Winery, according to his obituary.
At the time of the crash, Avalos-Chavez said he drank four beers about three hours before the crash.
A blood test showed his blood-alcohol level was 0.18%, more than twice the legal limit.
The standard sentencing range for the crime in Washington is 78 to 102 months. But the law allows judges to add two years for every previous DUI offense.
Judge Ruff found Chavez had two prior drunk driving offenses in 2006 and 2007 in Walla Walla, increasing his sentencing range to 126 to 150 months. She ordered the maximum.