They call this justice

W. TERRY SMITH
Editor

May 16, 2008 10:15 am

— Dalton and Margie Peaden just want justice. The Fountain couple's son Frankie, 33, was killed in a traffic accident that never should have happened.
Frankie was killed Jan. 23 when a BMW driven by Danny Ellis Vick, 31, of Tarboro crossed the center line on N.C. 43 outside Greenville and collided with the Toyota Peaden was driving to work about 7:30 a.m. Peaden was a plumber at East Carolina University.
Vick was released on parole in March 2007 after completing 13 years of a 20-year sentence for breaking entering and other charges.
He had tested positive for drug use in screenings after his release – and was arrested Oct. 1 at a Jacksonville Taco Bell on charges related to cocaine possession. (He is scheduled to be in Onslow County court to face those charges on Monday.)
Why was Vick not behind bars?
Since our jails and prison are literally full, the state usually directs parolees who fail the drug screenings into treatment, according to Robert Lee Guy, director of the state Division of Community Corrections, which oversee inmates paroled from state prisons.
You may be familiar with Guy's name. You may have seen it in other stories about parolees accused of crimes. Parolees are the suspects in the shooting death of Eva Carson, the University of North Carolina student body president.
Apparently, Vick was in treatment. It did not take. State Highway Patrol tests showed Vick was impaired due to cocaine and methadone when he crashed into Peaden.
Emergency rescue workers told Peaden's parents that at the scene of the wreck, Vick was hollering for them to leave Peaden and help him. Vick had minor injuries.
Peaden died at Pitt County Memorial Hospital later that morning.
More than 500 people came to the visitation at the funeral home and 300 attended the funeral at Farmville's First Baptist Church, spilling out into the fellowship hall where they listened to the service on speakers.
Peaden, an Edgecombe County native, was well known and well liked. The 1961 Tarboro High School graduate liked to cook, hunt and fish, and sing. He had worked every day since he was 16. He was a member of the Sharpe Point Volunteer Fire Department. He was happily married.
"He was good boy," said his aunt, Judy Sessoms of Tarboro.
Immediately after the wreck, Frankie's wife Kristen asked folks to sign a petition "to demand the events leading up to and causing the death of Frankie Peaden ... be fully investigated and that the role of convicted felon Danny Ellis Vick in causing Frankie' death be fully explored."
She obtained more than 3,500 signatures.
After the devastating loss of their son, the Peadens were stunned last week to learn Vick was able to enter a guilty plea to felony death by motor vehicle and receive a sentence of 34 to 50 months. Pitt County Superior Court Judge Rusty Duke explained to the Peadens that was the maximum allowed.
Vick is to serve this sentence after he completes his current sentence.
"We wanted a jury trial," Dalton said.
A jury trial could have added an extra 150 days to the sentence on the driving while impaired charge that was dropped as part of the plea bargain.
Assistant District Attorney Tonya Oliver of Pitt County prosecuted the case and said the Peadens may have been confused because the "prior bad acts" would not have been admissible in a trial.
Oliver feels like she did the right thing.
"We have an obligation to other citizens to take him off the road," she said. "This was a guaranteed guilty plea. You never know what might happen in a trial."
Oliver, 36, also understands how the Peadens feel.
"They are grief stricken," she said. "This is a prime example of the justice system failing someone. He got the maximum we can give. Is three years enough? No, it's not, but that's the law."
Dalton said, "We weren't confused. We asked for a jury trial from day one. We asked for justice."
How many people have to die in wrecks and shootings before our lawmakers get serious about taking criminals off the streets and putting them in prisons where they belong?

W. Terry Smith is editor of The Daily Southerner.