Was a judge right to sentence Donald Jackson to one year in jail?

A Calaveras County family is heartbroken after a judge sentenced the drunk driver who killed their daughter to one year in county jail and several years of probation.

Donald Jackson entered a plea of no contest to vehicular manslaughter, driving drunk and other charges in connection with a 2018 crash that killed 27-year-old Chelsea Lund and seriously injured her eight-year-old son.

A prosecutor asked for 12 years in state prison, but a judge ultimately decided Jackson would spend one year in county jail and five years probation.

The Lund family is devastated over the sentence, telling CBS13 they believe Jackson got off light.

“He pled to all those charges and got sentenced for none of them,” Mr. Lund told the TV station.

 

But attorney Mark Reichel said the judge’s sentence is more complicated than it appears, telling CBS13 the judge had to take into consideration the totality of Jackson’s incarceration of 14 months in county jail prior to his plea and his show of remorse before the court.

Reichel noted the judge did give Jackson eight years and eight months in jail but suspended the majority of that on condition that he complies with the terms of his probation. If Jackson violates those terms, he could be forced to serve the full five-year jail sentence.

Read the full story at CBS13.com