An appeals court judge today tossed a charge of motor vehicle homicide against an undocumented Ecuadorian driver, who was convicted two years ago of drunkenly hitting a Milford man with his pick-up truck and dragging him to his death.
In making the decision, however, the court upheld a more serious charge of OUI manslaughter against Nicolas Dutan Guaman, keeping intact the 12- to 14-year sentence he is serving.
Judge Gregory I. Massing determined the two convictions were “duplicative” and tossed Guaman’s concurent 9- to 10-year sentence he was serving for the homicide charge in Denice’s Aug. 20, 2011 death.
“As all of the elements of felony motor vehicle homicide are included within the elements of OUI manslaughter, it is a lesser-included offense and the defendant’s convictions for both crimes are duplicative,” Massing wrote. “Accordingly, while we affirm the defendant’s conviction and sentence for OUI manslaughter, the more serious offense, we must vacate the motor vehicle homicide conviction and sentence.”
Guaman’s attorney, Ethan C. Stiles, had argued for the opposite at a May hearing: That Guaman’s 2014 conviction for manslaughter by motor vehicle, for which he is serving up to 14 years, be thrown out while the lesser charge should stand.
“Manslaughter requires reckless conduct,” Stiles said at the time. “Motor vehicle homicide only requires negligent conduct. The evidence did not show Guaman acted recklessly.”
But Massing noted during the hearing that Guaman admitted to drinking as many as six beers before the crash. Guaman, who was driving a Ford pickup with a 6-year-old inside, was convicted of rolling through a stop sign and hitting Denice, flipping him and his motorcycle over the truck’s hood before Denice became lodged under the pickup.
Guaman then kept driving a quarter-mile as witnesses pounded on the truck, yelling at him in English to stop.
Stiles argued that Guaman, whose native language is Quechua, an Indian dialect of Ecuador, didn’t stop because he didn’t realize that Denice was trapped and he didn’t understand what the witnesses were saying.
But Massing said a “rational” person would have found that Guaman “intentionally ignored a plethora of readily apparent warning signs.”
“Even if the judge credited the defendant’s claim that he did not understand what was happening, the judge could have convicted based solely on the determination that any reasonable person in the defendant’s place would have realized the danger of continuing to drive,” the judge wrote.
Paul Jarvey — a spokesman for the Worcester County district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case — did not have an immediate comment on the ruling, but noted that it “doesn’t impact the sentence in any way.”
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