Perhaps Michael Gagnon of Adrian, Michigan, got tired of the lies.
After pleading not guilty back in January, on the 9th of May, 2008, Michael Gagnon came into the courtroom of Common Pleas Judge Linda Jennings. Once there, Michael Gagnon withdrew his not guilty plea and pled no contest to five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and two counts of aggravated vehicular assault.
Judge Jennings found him guilty.
If you’ll remember, Michael Gagnon - who had a BAC over twice the legal limit - drove about four miles in the wrong direction on the Interstate in search of fast food after leaving a family holiday party at a local bar.
After several close calls with other cars on the freeway, Michael Gagnon’s truck hit a minivan. Inside that minivan were six children and a husband and wife who were on their way back home after spending Christmas with family in Michigan.
Killed in that accident were 36-year-old Bethany Griffin, her children, 7-year-old Lacie Burkman, 10-year-old Haley Burkman, and 2-month-old Vadie Griffin, all of Parkville, Maryland. Her stepdaughter, 10-year-old Jordan Griffin was also killed. Bethany’s husband Danny Griffin and his daughter Sydney Griffin and stepson Beau Burkman, 7, survived.
As Michael Gagnon walked through the courtroom with his hands cuffed and feet shackled, family members of the victims, including Danny Griffin, grew quiet. When it was over, they left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.
Michael Gagnon will be sentenced on the 27th of June, 2008. He faces a potential 50-year prison sentence.
BRAVO!
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Like he’ll really be in there for 50 years…..
Overcrowding….
He found Jesus, Mohamid, The Dali Lamma, etc
Someone in the GP will have to get him before the system free him.
Most of his victims were gien the death sentence in a manner that is cruel and unusual.
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Jason reply on May 9, 2008:
Interesting thing was pointed out to me by a friend. Ohio State law states that you have to serve the full sentence you’re given, and may only receive 1 day less for every month, of good behavior.
While that does indeed mean that even if he was sentenced to 50 years, he won’t probably server 50 full years, it means he would serve over 48 years.
50 * 12 months = 600
600/365.25 = 1.6427
50 - 1.6427 > 48 years.
And yes, I can make a sliding calculation that adjusts for time off translating to fewer months for good behavior, but the example is appropriate.
My principle interest in this is to see that Sydney, Brett and Beau don’t have to deal with him until they have children of their own.
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Meaghan reply on May 11, 2008:
That’s only if they don’t overcrowd the prison with pot smokers or something and are forced to release inmates early.
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Jason reply on May 11, 2008:
If they’re going to keep pot smoking illegal, and I don’t smoke so wouldn’t really care either way, they should sent them to boot camp programs and sweat it out of them.
DUI Homicides have to be equated with murder or we can’t slow them down.
Jason reply on May 11, 2008:
send not sent… horrible slip there.
Fred and Jason you guys discust me! All I have to say is I was once told not to ever wish something one someone that you wouldn’t want done to you and I hope that everything all odf you hateful people out there is saying happens to all of you! Maybe some of you will find this as an attacking comment but ohwell! Poeple make mistakes! Even perfect little you Jason has made mistakes! And I am sure that 50 years isn’t going to make any one if Bethanys family feel better! Nothing will. THERE IS NOTHING THAT ANYONE CAN DO TO BRING THOSE SWEET LITTLE INNOCENT KIDS BACK! i HAVE SAT HERe AND REREAD WHAT EVERY BODY HAS POSTED AND NOT MADE A REPLY ALL ALONG BUT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! I reall y don’t care what anyone is going to say replying to my comment! Except remember this all of you that say you have never once got behind the wheel and drove after having a couple drinks just astounds me! I may not know michael but I am sure he will be reliving that night. God is the only one to judge him.
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TurtleMania reply on May 9, 2008:
I’m hoping he can commit to advocacy.
I’d like to see him mentor young teens that have been arrested for petty alcohol offenses.
If young ears can learn from him, we’d curb most of those violent car accidents.
To simply sit in prison is not enough. I hope this is a life changer for him in a positive way.
Those deaths should not be in vain! His whole life should be for the advocacy cause.
The guilty verdict is a step in the right direction.
Now he needs to focus on prevention.
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Fred reply on May 9, 2008:
While we have all done our share of sins, some of us are more responsible than others.
I have made the mistake and drove the wrong way on a highway - some DO NOT ENTER signs were missing at the end of Liberty Street in Spfld MA, so I did not know that Liberty Street ended and that I was going up an exit. I figured it out quickly when someone came at me horn blaring. The total length of my mistake was about 1000 feet or less, but again SIGNS were MISSING.
Secondly when I plan on drinking, I make sure that there will be a sober driver or there will be sopme other form of safe transportation. If it’s my turn to drive, sucks to be me 1 or 2 drinks max at the start of the night then it’s Coke.
If I am drunk, being an asshole and not getting my way, it just sucks to be me. There is nowhere to go nor do I feel that I am more powerful than alcohol. I was quite drunk at my reunion, and yes I was hungry, but I dare not even try to WALK across the 4 lane divided street to go to Denney’s.
So
1. Nothing is going to bring anyone back, but by putting Michael Gagnon and the like of him in jail WILL stop them from killing again. Someone - are you so stupid as to think that Gagnon will sober up if he was allowed to simply live life as if nothing happened?
2. Most people are more responsible / less selfish than Mr Gagnon.
So yes someday I may kill someone when I am driving, but the diffewrence will be that I will try to avoid the accident, if possible, or take action as to minimize the severity of the event.
The simple fact is that this was 100% avoidable - simply don’t drink and drive.
Who ever you are someone - have you been hit by a drunk? Or have you been the drunk?
Yes I hate drunk selfish bastards that don’t care about anything but themselves.
And i hate the people that defend them
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Another Mother reply on May 9, 2008:
First of all, I don’t know why Jason of all people disgusts you. He’s one of the most intelligent, thoughtful posters on this site. Yes, he is emotional about this case, with good reason. Bethany was a close friend of his. But his emotions have never been construed by irrational, vulgar or hateful speech. I think he’s quite an inspiration.
I’m also not sure why it’s so astounding that people refrain from drinking and driving. I can only speak for myself when I say I haven’t done it, nor will I ever. And I’ll do everything in my power to ensure neither of my kids ever do.
Also, Michael SHOULD be reliving this over and over. Not to torture him, but because this family should not have died in vain. How else would he be able to repent for what he’s done without thinking about it?
Lastly, God is not the only one to judge him. If you’d really re-read all the postings you’d know why that’s not so.
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Meaghan reply on May 9, 2008:
Michael had more than “a few drinks.”
I am 22 and have been drinking alcohol since the age of 15 and driving since age 15 as well, and I have never gotten behind the wheel after having even ONE drink, and I doubt I ever will.
Of course the long sentence cannot bring that poor dead woman and her children back. But by your logic, no murderer should go to jail because the jail sentence will not bring the victim back. But it’s not intended to. It’s intended to serve justice and it does that.
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Jason reply on May 10, 2008:
Nothing can bring Bethany, Vadie, Haley, Lacie, or Jordan back. Time will leave scars on Sydney and Danny. Beau and Brett and every other familial survivor of this will wear the pain and suffering of this event, but there is a horizon.
That Horizon is not composed of the suffering of men and women, but of a concept of justice, and justice is a sense of safety and security bought at a price of knowledge.
How do we learn to avoid the hot stove? We are burned by it or better yet we see someone else burned by that fire. Before our minds are fully formed we learn that murder is wrong and we learn that there are consequences for our actions.
In most of the lives of those capable of reading this today, we will suffer through broken hearts or the breaking of the hearts of others. Some of us learn from those events and strive to build a life better off without our contributing more. I’m sorry that this is breaking your heart. I am honestly sorry that you can’t see that there is only one positive outcome that can come from this, and it is not Michael’s mystical deliverance from secular justice because you knew him and love him more than you love any aspect of society and culture that could help to make us safe from people who choose to make the same mistakes over and over again.
You wish horrible things on others, and pull on your hair and beat on your flesh angry at me, because I wounded you when you would wound others. Your path has been tried. DUI deaths have been forgiven and forgotten, else there would never be another, and even in the span of time since Michael killed Bethany, there have been thousands in this nation alone. Thousands.
You hate me, you hate Fred, but you fail to look in a mirror and identify your actual hatred–you are a tool of your own slavery to the same failings that will weigh us down until we cast off every anchor that would slow forward momentum. Michael is guilty. He was guilty before, and thousands if not millions of lives lost before his actions paved a road for his sentence, but yet he drank and smoked his way to oblivion and then beyond into the oblivion of others. He chose to stand and await a sight of every failing and failure. His intermediaries bargained with the victims to gain satisfaction and a shorter sentence, and he ended up with nothing.
And you probably blame Danny, Jack and Jodie for it, when you again miss the point that if there had never been an avenue where a lawyer had brought a sense of possible release from judgment before, somewhere along the way, Michael would have learned not to do the things that put him where he is today.
Michael had an expensive education. One pricier than a thousand Phd’s. Perhaps a few thousand can receive an education at his expense. At your expense. At my expense.
Take your hands away from the keyboard for a moment, and phrase in your mind the words necessary to advocate for a law that would equate what Michael did with 1st Degree Premeditated murder. Make the crime in every form the same, regardless of circumstances beyond inebriation, driving and the death of any person, and you will add to “Thou Shalt not Kill” the proper garland of thou shalt not Drink and Drive.
Cowardice is hiding in the shadows when you think that it makes you someone, when it really makes you no one. Cowardice is thinking that even Michael isn’t going to eventually wake up and see what this really needs to be, from here on out.
There is only one positive outcome and that is for fewer deaths to occur.
Try those words on for size.
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Kenny reply on May 12, 2008:
again, Jason phrases things better then most of us ever could.
“I was once told not to ever wish something one someone that you wouldn’t want done to you ”
I for one do wish for Gagnon the same I would wish on myself if I drive drunk and kill a family. I would want no less then what he’s up against if not death myself. I also don’t believe I would have ever considered a not guilty plea, and yes, way to man up and plead guilty there, too bad it took this long to do that.
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I personally didn’t think he had it in him.
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While I’m not going to be heaping copious amounts of praise on Mr. Gagnon, I do commend him for making this decision. We will probably never know if he did this because he’s owned up to the consequences of his actions or if it’s simply a bid for a more lenient sentence. I will choose to believe he’s doing this in good faith. I would hope people would do the same if it were my son. In any case, it’s slightly less grief for the family, thank goodness.
I’ll be interested to see what his sentence will be and, more importantly, how he’ll use the time he’s in jail. As I’ve said before, I sincerely hope he can turn this around by spending his days making sure this never happens again.
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He only did it because his lawyer seen all the evidence and knew he couldn’t win. About a month ago Gagnons lawyer asked Danny if he would make a plea that would dismiss the two charges of vehicular assault. Which basically meant that what he did to Sidney and Danny didn’t happen. They carry a five year max. for each count. When Danny didn’t accept the first plea Gagnon’s lawyer must of realized that there was no way he could win.
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He needs to stay in jail longer.
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This August it will be 10 years sinse my worst drunk driving accident.
My wife (first at that time) told me that I was an idiot and was out to prove that there was nothing wrong with the van. She drove the van 50 up the street and found that I was right - reverse did not work. After she admitted I was right, I had to push the car back to the house. Living n a busy street, hundreds of cars passed while I pushed the van back to the house. As I was pushing, it looked to me that there was a car looking for a parking space. I yelled as the car seemed to pull in back of us - there was no legal parking and I was not going to have my driveway blocked again. My wife quickly pulled her leg into the car when she heard me yell - the back of the van was struck sending me into the air, then the diver’s door which was partially open was struck and really trashed.
http://nibbleandbit.com/fopinions/carhit98.jpg
My now X still has probems with her shoulders, my knee bothers me if it stays still fo rmore than an hour, even when I sleep, it’s RLS or wake up in pain - what a choice!
The drunk’s atty tried to say that I was pushing my van INTO rather than TO my driveway. The dickhead was trying to create a condition that never happened as to justify why his client hit my van while hundreds of other cars passed with no problem!
The difference between TO and INTO
TO - my van was staying in the parking lane on the street. I could not put the van in te driveway nor was I going to.
INTO - At some point I would need some swing room which may have put my van into the driving lane of the street.
In short, the scum of the earth atty was trying to pin some of the blame on me. I thought it was going to be an open and shut case - no atty needed. I told this slime ball that he was putting words in my mouth and that I was giong to hire an atty to deal with such a lieing sack of shit.
So I do believe that the atty told Mike to give it up - a jury trial may have been worse.
I was recently stuck by another drunk and the laws here in CT have really let the victim follow the case. 10 years ago I could not find anything out about Helen Lucas of Waterbury CT (with a NH driver’s license) as she had rights. Recently I was invited to speak at the perp’s sentencing. I had to work, so I spoke to the prosecutor who spoke to the judge. The perp got the max.
While my accident was no where near what happened in this case, I still live with the pain from 10 years ago.
Whatever happened to Helen Lucas? I do not know.
More laws need to be made for the victim.
The victims should have every right to be at or be represented.
Will this sway the juries? Yes.
Victims are real people and shuold be represented as such. Defense attys will think otherwise, but then again that is why there is a hell!
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TurtleMania reply on May 12, 2008:
Is that a picture of your car, man?
Whoa.
I’d think it would’ve been a walk-in-the-park case especially because the driver had been drinking. He probably had a high BAC, yes.
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Fred reply on May 13, 2008:
Most of the mess is the driver’s door or what was left of it.
turns outthe officer incharge was a drunk himself. The driver went .25 miles down the block hitting a few moer cars. rumor was a total of 20 cars were struck, mine being the worst.
I caught up to her and shutdown the car, she tried to bite me. There was an empty bottle of vodka in the passenger’s seat or floor.
I ripped off the front plate. The officer asked how I knew she hit me. Duh - driver’s side a mess on my car, passenger on hers, white paint on my car, blue on hers. He demanded that I got her plate number to which I jammmed the plate in his hand!
I could not get the keys out of the car, but by shuttingthe car down I stopped her from entering a dangerous intersection that has had problems from as far back at 1909! (Trolley accident….)
It should have ben a walk in the park, but the lawyer was looking for some way to pin the fact that his client was unable to get by me on me!
Like I have said before - there is a corner in hell, deeper, darker,& warmer because even Satan is disgusted by the depravity of these souls!
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TurtleMania reply on May 12, 2008:
Fred – I read this one again ha
Why didn’t you simply just drive around the block in (D)rive?
Hey, you could’ve had the chance to rear-end that moron!
Press firmly on the gas pedal and let ‘er rip!
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Fred reply on May 13, 2008:
Traffic was crazy on my block & the tranney was going on the van. The street was being torn up for new water mains & there was bridge construction down the street, so the traffic was plentiful and slow, so a 50 foot push should have been no problem!
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Meaghan reply on May 12, 2008:
On a semi-related topic, I believe that under Belgian law, at a criminal trial the victim also has a right to a lawyer free of charge, to advise and provide moral support. I wonder if it would be any better if such an innovation was made in the US?
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Jason reply on May 13, 2008:
In a criminal case, the prosecution, while representing the state, advises the victims on behalf of the state’s case. Additionally, while similar, Belgium uses the French System for justice. Differences include, but are not limited to the preliminaries in which the prosecuting magistrate calls for an investigation, the magistrate interviews the accused and determines whether or not the accused will be brought to trial. The stance in American courts is innocent until proven guilty, but this is more a forma than merely the guiding principle. There are two or more cases being brought. One in advocacy of the State’s position the other in defense of the suspect. While in appearances this is the same or extremely similar, the course is different and the addition of a third case can be seen as unbalancing and unfair.
Not to say that one is better than the other, only that they are different, and that those differences may be what precludes the adoption of a victim’s rights advocate as an attorney who is admitted to the court as a practicing attorney. This is not to say that the police and the community don’t sometime provide support and explanations, and like the French system civil and criminal cases are separate, but that the ability to make a case, that is to present evidence to the judge and jury are powers reserved for the defense and prosecution.
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Meaghan reply on May 14, 2008:
Oh. Okay.
This one is for Fred:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zQ0_d-BFM4
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Fred reply on May 14, 2008:
Loved it, too bad the cop could not just beat the drunk’s dumb ass!
I was pukled over some years back and all I had was a can pf Sprite and crappy road conditions.
Answered all questions and let the officers sniff my soda and I was on my way.
Little respect can go a long way!
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I transported a man to a detox center a few days ago. He had BAC of a whopping .383! He was still fully conscious, he knew where he was and he even pointed out the door to the center. His speech was very slurred, but he was still talking in complete sentences. He was able to walk, or stagger, on his own.
Now Michael Gagnon had a BAC well under a full percentage point lower than this man.
Why do I bring this up? There is no way a man with Gagnon’s BAC, high though it was, could NOT know he was driving the wrong way, especially at night when the bright lights of cars were swerving every which way to avoid him. Witnesses also claim that they saw Gagnon swerving to avoid vehicles, so he was fully aware he was driving the wrong way. He also was aware enough to know what he wanted at the local Taco bell.
We all know that some drunks get violently angry when they drink. I believe Gagnon was in a furious, uncontrolled rage, when he drove that night. Realizing he made the wrong turn onto the freeway made him even more angry. He probably thought, as he was driving in a “get outta my way” taking revenge on the world kind of way, that it was the fault of all the other drivers that they weren’t pulling off the side of the road to accomodate him. When someone smashed into his truck he was even more livid, as paramedics have testified. He was furious that someone who didn’t have the sense to pull over wrecked his truck. He then bitched out the paramedics and who knows who else for everything that happened. He was obviously in a state of drunken anger.
If I were the prosecuting attorney I would charge Michael Gagnon with five counts of intentional homicide.
What do you think?
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Fred reply on May 15, 2008:
Great input and great supporting details. While you suport your assumption with both Gagnon’s behavioral details and experience from another person, you are assuming tha Gagnon was still smart enough to know waht he was doing, but did not care based on a valid rage theory.
Given different people handle alcholol differently, it may have taken him a few more minutes to figure out that he reaslly made a bad mistake. whereas someone sober like myself, figured ot out quite quickly (like after the second or third car). Also if it was not that busy on the highway, Gagnon could have gotten quite a distance before he saw any “opposing” headlights.
What may have fueled his rage was the thought that he avoided so many cars and gotten so far that why did this asshole hit him?
Logic starts to disappear when drunk as well and given what a self centered bastard Gagnon is, common sense sharing is probably not a virtue when he is sober either.
So, while I disagree a bit about how aware and intentional Gagnon’s driving the wrong way was, he is still responsible for the deaths. I do agree that at some point he was aware of the fact that he was driving the wrong way, but at that point he may have thought - I am this far, what’s another….? So rather than turn around immediately, he either chose to finish his run or decided to contunue until there was a break in the median as to get to the correct side of the highway. Either way he made a selfish choice which cost 5 people their livves.
IMO, when people are drunk, their truer nature comes out because they lack the judgement, logic and other skills to cover up who they really are, Some drunk men profess their love and admiration of their same sex friends only when they are drunk because such actions when sober they (the drunk) regards as “gay” behavior.
So based on all of what I said, Gagnon is a selfish bastard who still should be held responsible for 5 deaths.
His family may have thought he was a decent person with problems, but from what moral base?
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Jason- I am so glad for you and the family that this POS pled out, even though it obviously was only to take a little time off HIS sentence. Which, btw was not a death sentence like the one he chose for 5 PEOPLE.
I would like to see the family follow with a civil case. And, I’d like this POS to be forced to work for pennies on the hour for the next 40 years for damages.
Damages- a really shitty way to say that you selfishly killed 5 people over your desire to get a Chalupa while shit-faced drunk.
c
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I recently watched a documentary about life in prison. They get tiny cells and usually have to share them. Shanks (handmade knives)are everywhere and are used to do serious damage to other inmates. Fistfights don’t happen, they just shank the other bastard when pissed off. Also, how about things such as living with overflowing toilets and no tvs in the cells. The cells are the size of a bathroom Great quality of life!! One of the inmates in the film was washing dishes in the cafeteria for about 60 cents an hour. He killed some people too.
Some more prison shots included the yard. Men were yelling and swearing nonstop. They are caged animals and they know that there is no way out. This is from people doing 20 years. POS gets 50 years and he is going to be screaming and yelling his brains out daily from the tedium of it all. Oh also, THE BEST SEX THESE MEN EVER HAD WAS IN PRISON. Yup, hope POS likes manlove cause someone will be poking in his ass in no time. ALSO AIDS IS RAMPANT IN PRISONS BECAUSE OF THE GAY SEX…..
To sum this up for now. POS will have horrors ahead of him that he never even knew existed.
So living a life worse than that of a caged animal will make POS wish that he had died when he committed the murders. A
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When I hear stories like you just said, I want to stress, that Prison is what the prisoners make it. Shivs, rape, and other sufferings inflicted between inmates are extensions of the inmates not of the system that sends them there.
I wanted Michael Gagnon to receive the death penalty or life in prison. I felt it was justified. I don’t want more crimes to be inflicted on him because that will be a distraction, a diversion from the concept that 5 lives were ended because of his actions. I don’t think that distraction and diversion in the form of abuse is going to help in the long run.
To Glory, thanks, Michael got one of the concessions he wanted by making the plea of no contest, he’ll get to serve the sentences for Aggravated Assault concurrently with the sentences for Aggravated Vehicular Manslaughter. 50 years is now probably off the table. A plea of no contest is often entered to assist in the civil cases that are typically expected in these matters. i don’t know if this was his intention, but I’m told that a plea of no contest is seen in a negative light by most courts because rather than an acceptance of responsibility it’s seen as a technical plea. I hope this was not the case.
As a side note, I feel some corrections need to be made and for my part, I’m sorry for the inaccuracies that slipped by. Gagnon’s MIP charge that he had from earlier was for Marijuana. Gagnon appears to have been significantly over the legal limit on both Alcohol and Marijuana.
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