WHEN KILLING PEOPLE GETS NOT MUCH MORE THAN A SLAP ON THE WRIST

If you are a drunken Californian

Vera Zukowski wants to know why the drunken driver who killed her 22-year-old daughter could be free after just one year in prison. Merry Zukowski died Jan. 30, when the broken-down car she was sitting in along the shoulder of Highway 60 was hit by Annamaria V. Estrada, 39, of Moreno Valley. Estrada was driving east near Market Street in Riverside just before 5 a.m. when she swerved off the road in her Ford Explorer. Zukowski, in the driver's seat, was crushed to death. Her friend, in the passenger's seat, was unharmed.

Estrada pleaded guilty to DUI vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence June 16. Since she had no criminal record, Estrada received the mid- range sentence: two years in state prison. With good behavior, she could be out in one.

As Zukowski sees it, that sentence was a miscarriage of justice. But the prosecutors say it was a victory. Creg Datig, an expert on vehicular manslaughter at the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, said that by legal standards for DUI vehicular manslaughter, Estrada's crime was not egregious. She wasn't driving 100 mph through city streets. Her blood-alcohol level wasn't outrageously high. She didn't have a string of DUI convictions on her record.

Samah Shouka, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said Estrada could easily have gotten probation. In fact, she said, that's what the probation department recommended. Datig said the battle was getting over the probation recommendation. "Do I personally think that that's enough?" Datig said. "No." But when he started his career, Datig said, it was routine for first offenders like Estrada to receive no jail time. Datig said the penalties for vehicular homicide have not changed appreciably in the past 20 years. But, he said, the fact that they are getting prison sentences for cases like Estrada's is "a marked departure."

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