Judge has strong words for driveway shooter at sentencing

Well, first I really want to thank those of you who came here today and gave Victim Impact statements. It was very important for me to hear them and they were taken into account in my

sentencing

decision and I want you to know. So when I sit a defendant as a

judge

, there are certain principles. I think Attorney Moris touched on one, General Deterrence, and that is to send a message to society at large that there are certain behaviors that will not be tolerated. Mr. Gillis addressed this in his victim impact statement and said that such acts of violence will not be tolerated in our society.

I think it's important for people to know that it's not okay to shoot and kill people driving down your

driveway

. I know in the county where we live and probably countless other rural areas, it is quite common to drive down the wrong

driveway

. It is a common thing for someone to walk through your driveway and there are definite decisions you can make right now and the choice made. in this case it is absolutely unacceptable, so I also go by the principle of specific deterrence, specific deterrence is directed directly at the defendant, it basically says that he should be prevented from doing things in the future and, Mr.

Monahan, I think that if he did released from prison and you know that people who commit murders generally don't recite much, they don't commit the same crime again, it's a low rate of reism, but with you I think you could really do the same thing again, it's obvious. To me, you feel justified, you take no responsibility for the outcome of your actions, you just don't understand it. The first thing you do on the witness stand when you come here and testify is that you made a joke to the jury. about how they finally got to see your face, you senselessly took Kong Gillis' life and you have the nerve to sit here and talk about how you plan to finish work at home and compete in Motocross in the future that you don't deserve.

So, what would make you think you deserve those things, even when your lawyer tried to get you to acknowledge that your house wasn't being invaded? By being invaded, he was trying to elicit a response from you that would have someone take responsibility for his actions and you couldn't even do that. Your first instinct was to lie about what happened and you lied repeatedly in such a cold and calculating way. and the jury clearly saw your lies and rejected them in killing Kin Gillis. You took a friend, you took a girlfriend, you took a daughter, a granddaughter and a brother, you took away so much realized potential, her potential to enrich other people's. you live and contribute and to contribute to our society, you also traumatize the young men and women who mistakenly drove into your driveway that night, you will scar them, this will scar them and traumatize them for the rest of their lives, any regrets they You have it's not for the damage you have caused the only thing you regret is that you are finally facing the consequences of your actions, you murdered K Gillis, you shot a car full of people and you didn't care what would happen and you lied repeatedly about it. you deserve to spend the maximum prison time available under our law and I do not make this decision because it is easy I make it because it is what you deserve I make it because it is what is fair for the conviction of second degree murder I sentence you to a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for conviction of first-degree reckless endangerment.

I am following the law. I'm going to sentence you to two and A3 concurrent. to a 7-year term of incarceration for tampering with physical evidence conviction, you know, I can understand why a court you know might maybe go along with the flow because, to begin with, you received a 25-year life sentence, but there was a delay, there was a lot of time that you had between the time the police showed up and the time you tampered with the evidence you had a lot of time to make up lies you had a lot of time to do things to the gun to manipulate it basically to try to destroy evidence and Because of that time you had to think about those things and the conscious efforts you made to alter that evidence.

I think it's right that you get a consecutive prison sentence for that charge, so that's 1 to 3 to 4 years in prison. uh, prison, there is a matter of a $300 search fee, a $25 crime victim assistance fee, and a $50 DNA fee. Attorney Frost is your client and he is in a position to pay those funds now, not today, okay, and then we also have a couple of documents that need to be reviewed, one is an authorization signature for the collection of DNA from your client and the other is a notice of intent to appeal, we will give them to you now for you to review them with your client's notice, okay, we have a written notice. form, we will meet, yes, if you could while we are waiting, it is not right and what is being prepared right now, Mr.

Manahan, is a notice of intent to appeal, just make sure you review it with your attorney and make the selection that creates. anything else is appropriate, Mar K, that um, hey, I'm just fulfilling the commitment, okay, I've been on something on the cover, okay, we got the notice of intent to appeal something else from the people, No, thank you, nothing more from the defense lawyer, nothing more. true sir, you are a man in the Washington County Jail and will later be transferred to the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections to serve your sentence.

We have concluded.