Evergreen teen gets 15 years

The Evergreen teenager convicted of deliberate homicide in the deaths of two Columbia Falls residents was sentenced to 15 years with the Montana Department of Corrections on Monday.

Flathead County District Court Judge Katherine Curtis sentenced Justine Winter, 18, to 30 years with 15 years suspended for each of the two counts, with both sentences to run concurrently. The sentences include a restriction stating that Winter must serve at least 7 1/2 years before becoming eligible for parole.

The sentence followed about three hours of emotional testimony at a hearing that began at 9 a.m. on Monday in Flathead District Court. Eight witnesses took the stand for the state, and six people took the stand for the defense, including Winter.

Winter was 16 when her vehicle crossed the centerline of U.S. 93 near Church Drive on March 19, 2009, and collided head-on with a vehicle driven by Erin Thompson, 35, who was pregnant at the time. Thompson and her 13-year-old son, Caden Odell, died in the crash.

Prosecutors accused Winter of intentionally crashing her southbound Pontiac Grand Am into Thompson's northbound Subaru Forester in an alleged suicide attempt. Recovered text messages were used as evidence of this claim in the trial.

Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan had recommended a 40-year sentence for Winter, saying the state is "required to hold Justine accountable for her actions regardless of whether or not she remembered that night."

But he also noted that Winter is a small woman with a brain injury and recently was assaulted in the Flathead County Detention Center, a point addressed by Winter's attorney, David Stufft.

"This leads us to know what is going to happen to her if she is sent to prison even for a day," Stufft said.

A key issue raised at sentencing was Winter's continued position that she was not responsible for the accident.

"I just want you guys to know that you may feel I don't take accountability, but it's not accountability I need to take," she said at the sentencing hearing. "It's, it's - I don't know what it is."

Curtis said she understood how difficult it was for the victims' families to be faced with Winter's apparent inability to admit the deaths were her fault.

"The time has passed for debate on the subject of what happened," Curtis said.

Curtis, however, said she took into account Winter's age and the emotional state she was in at the time of the accident when deciding on a sentence.

"I do not believe that Justine needs to be on probation until she is 68 years old," Curtis said.

Caden Odell's father, Craig Odell, also addressed Winter's lack of accountability.

"You did it," he told her. "I hope some day you will own it. I don't want to see you spend your life in prison."

Winter's attorneys, David Stufft and Maxwell Battle, had filed motions on March 4 and 7 providing 17 reasons why Winter should receive another trial. Claiming the two-week trial was flawed, Stufft and Battle asked Curtis to intercede in the interest of justice and either declare Winter innocent, order a new trial or pronounce her guilty of a lesser charge.

Curtis answered each of the attorney's 17 claims on June 2 by denying a new trial.

"The defendant received a fair trial," Curtis wrote in her 20-page ruling. "The interests of justice, the law and the weight of the evidence do not justify or warrant a new trial or modification of the verdict."

Curtis said defense witness Dan DeCoite did not provide new evidence that would have called into question testimony by prosecution witness Richard Poeppel, who said he saw Winter's vehicle cross the centerline.

Curtis also discredited claims by Stufft and Battle that the prosecution had changed its theory at trial and that a defense witness was improperly questioned about his previous employment.

Winter, who has been jailed since the Feb. 3 guilty verdicts that followed a nine-day trial, was taken back to the Flathead County Detention Center after Curtis announced the sentence. She graduated from Glacier High School on Saturday with honors but was unable to attend the graduation ceremony because she was in jail.