The drunk driver who killed activist Maruta Gardner in Mission Beach after she painted over graffiti was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in prison in front of a packed courtroom. All 77 seats were filled before Jonathan Domingo Garcia, 24, was sentenced by San Diego Superior Court Judge Kathleen Lewis, who turned down his attorney’s request for probation.
Deputy District Attorney Steve Schott asked for 15 years while the probation department recommended 11 years. Defense attorney Gerald Smith asked for no more than nine years if probation was denied.
Lewis said she believed Garcia was “a danger to others,” and mentioned his first hit and run accident that occurred in Jan., some three weeks before he killed Gardner.
“You had a wake up call that you didn’t answer,” said Lewis. “I don’t doubt you have remorse now.”
Gardner, a retired teacher and principal at Mission Bay High School, was struck at 5:45 p.m. by Garcia, who drove away without stopping. Schott described her as “a pillar of the community.”
Garcia pleaded guilty June 15 to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and admitted leaving the scene of an accident.
Schott told the judge to consider how Gardner, 68, and Garcia each spent Feb. 12, the day she was killed while looking at graffiti she had just painted over in the in the 600 block of San Diego Place in Mission Beach. In contrast, Garcia “chose to spend the day to get drunk and get high” from marijuana and tranquilizers, said Schott. Garcia committed a hit and run and then later vandalized cars in Mission Beach by slashing tires with a friend, he added.
After striking Gardner, grey paint from her cart splashed onto his hood and window, but he didn’t stop. Minutes later, “he drove right past Mrs. Gardner lying in the street and tried to get away,” said Schott.
“The man couldn’t even stand; he was so drunk,” said Schott.
An officer stopped Garcia’s vehicle at 2695 Mission Blvd. Another officer told Garcia that the woman he struck might die, according to previous testimony. Schott said Garcia asked about damage to his car and when could he get it back.
“I screwed up bad. I took a life,” said Garcia, according to his attorney who quoted him as saying that to him in jail.
“It has been really hard for me to deal with this,” said Garcia in court tearfully. “I know I can do the right thing if given a second chance. I would do anything to show I’m not a bad person.”
Garcia’s mother, Angelica Villalobos, tearfully dropped to her knees in court and apologized to Gardner’s husband, William, and other family members in the audience.
“I am so sorry. I hope you can see beyond your pain he’s a good kid,” said Villalobos. “I know if he could take your pain away, he would do it.”
When his stepfather, Steve Brickett, spoke, he also turned to the victim’s survivors in the audience, and Lewis told him to direct his comments to her. “He’s being haunted day and night about what happened,” said Brickett.
“My son made a choice that changed all our lives,” said his father, Domingo Garcia. “I know my son is very sorry.”
Lynette Blakney, a Gardner friend of 35 years, told Jonathan Garcia to learn from his mistakes and “make your life a memorial” to Gardner. Blakney said William Gardner witnessed the crash, which is “a nightmare he relives every day of his life.”
Lewis ordered Garcia to pay $1,349 in restitution and fined him $3,524. She gave him credit for serving 400 days in jail.