There are times when all of us fantasize about being the judge.
To sit high at the bench; to command respect. To have our wisdom and experience, distilled in our judgments, imposed upon the guilty with the exclamation point of the gavel in our hand.
And there are times when we would not trade places with the judge, as the old saying goes, for all the gold in Fort Knox.
Monday in La Plata County Court was one of those occasions. Judge Martha Minot sentenced Durango resident Michelle Northcutt to a year in jail with no subsequent probation for careless driving. Northcutt admitted that she was at fault in causing a traffic accident that took the life of Tim Cooper, a popular local man and a dedicated husband and father. Cooper, on his motorcycle, was stopped behind a pickup truck at the stoplight at the intersection of Colorado Highway 3 and U.S. Highway 160. Northcutt, approaching on Highway 3, fell asleep at the wheel of her SUV and rear-ended him.
Initial reactions to the sentence, which included a $1,000 fine, a three-year license suspension and 300 hours of community service, ranged from disbelief to outrage. Surely the charge should have been vehicular manslaughter, the sentence longer, the punishment much more severe?
Judge Minot did not see it that way. While Northcutt admitted to marijuana use five hours prior, she passed a roadside sobriety test. A married mother of two children, Northcutt did not have a criminal record or a bad driving record. She made the regrettable decision to travel to an appointment when she was too tired to drive, and it was that decision alone that brought the sentence.
But what of Tim Cooper and the family and friends he left behind? Family and friends, shattered by the event, may not feel that justice has been served. It is hard not to sympathize, but the case illustrates precisely why we hold trial in a courtroom, not in the court of public opinion with online comments on news articles serving as evidence.
“There is no justice here,” Minot said during sentencing. “Why bad things happen to good people is not a question that will be answered here.”
How can it be? It was an accident, one that ended the life of one man and changed the lives of all the family members and friends of both parties who remain. In the fantasy court where we reside as judge, we are not confronted by cases like this. Our decisions are swift and inarguable, the cases all clearly cut and dried.
That Tim Cooper was a good man who lost his life because of the actions of another is clear. What Judge Minot pointed out in her decision is that Michelle Northcutt, despite her actions on June 6, appears also to be a good person. A person who, until that summer morning, lived her life much as we go about living ours. She is filled with remorse. She has sincerely apologized to the Cooper family, and now faces a year behind bars.
Those who feel that she has not been adequately punished should keep in mind that only the official term of her sentence will end when she leaves jail. She must live with her role in this accident for a long time to come.
