Parents' pleas keep daughter’s killer in jail

PORTLAND, Ore. – A Multnomah County judge agreed Monday with the parents of a woman killed in a hit-and-run incident that the man who killed her should not be released early under a new Oregon law.
 
A new law passed by the Legislature aimed at saving money allowed 27-year-old Rosendo Rosales-Corona, a Mexican national, to come up for parole only a year after being sentenced for hitting Kimberly McDaniel with his car in 2006. After hitting her in the Columbia River Gorge, he left her for dead, ditched his car and then fled to Mexico.

After getting a 58-month prison sentence for the crime he asked Monday for his sentence to be reduced by almost six months.

The mother of McDaniel spoke out in court against the reduction of Rosales-Corona sentence and pleaded for common sense.

“I’m here to stand and speak for Kimberly because she can’t,” said Janet Tremain, McDaniel’s mother. “He let Kimberly lay there in the bushes suffering and bleeding in pain. All I ask is that you don’t add more time off from his sentence.”

In the end Rosales-Corona’s request for early release was denied but McDaniel’s parents want to know why the man who killed their daughter would get a day in court so soon after his conviction and sentencing.

“He’s looking for another chance, another loophole in the system where he’s going to be able to get out a little earlier,” said Tremain.

Victims’ rights groups said the loophole is Oregon SB 3508 which passed the Legislature earlier this year. It allows prisoners to reduce their sentences by 30 percent for good behavior.

The groups said lawmakers used their power to usurp the voters’ will.

“They told us it was going to be for property crimes and drug crimes, and here we are sitting today listening to violent crimes that have been committed by these people and this isn’t the last you are going to hear of this,” said Steve Doell of Crime Victims United.

Tremain said the Legislature did it in spite of the pain it would put families through.

“If they were in my shoes. If they were having to deal with this situation themselves, how would they handle it?” she said.

A spokesman for Gov. Ted Kulongoski said the governor signed the bill because the law will save taxpayers millions every year in prison costs. The spokesman also said today’s ruling proved violent offenders will not benefit from the law and victims will have a voice.

Even though McDaniel’s parents won a victory Monday when Judge Stephen Bushong ruled Rosales-Corona would not get a reduced sentence, they are afraid another new law allowing illegal immigrants to have prison time reduced by six months will force them back in court and will open their wounds again.