GLOBE — None of the Rawlingss will serve any jail time or jail time in connection with the deaths of three children on November 29, 2019.
Daniel Rawlings killed three children; that is, caused the death of them in a reckless manner. Two of them were Colby and Willa, his and Lacey Rawlings’ own children; beloved niece Austin was the third. Last month, they both pleaded guilty to every single crime they have been charged with as a result of their actions on November 29, 2019. Around 4:30 a.m. that afternoon during a Thanksgiving holiday, Daniel drove a huge military-style vehicle into rain-swollen Tonto Creek, causing the deaths. They admitted their guilt in open court and the court found them so.
Daniel and his wife Lacey each had separate plea agreements and each had their own appointed counsel. The offers were not identical. For example, Lacey is guilty of seven counts of child molestation, all Class 4 crimes. She was offered probation instead of jail. The big question in her case, as part of parole, was what type of county jail she would get – it could be up to a year.
In contrast, Daniel’s consent was open-ended. He is guilty of triple manslaughter. Class 2 felonies and seven counts of child abuse, Class 3 felonies. His sentence would be at the judge’s choice: 12 years in prison, possibly for manslaughter, probation that could include up to a year in county jail.
So the very solemn parties appeared in court last Thursday, January 27 at 10 am. Timothy M. Wright took the bench at 10:15 a.m., saluted the parties and the tribune (more on that later), and announced that a personal “class attendance” was in court (officials, victims, their representatives, etc.). restricted by health protocols, but court is streaming online and observers can follow proceedings via You Tube. The audio wasn’t that clear, but that’s how things turned out.
Gila County Assistant Assistant Attorney Bradley Soos went first and presented five speakers, an 18-minute powerpoint recording of Lacey’s interview with investigators, before and after scene videos of witnesses who began filming, when an unusual vehicle successfully crossed Tonto Creek at the so-called Punkin Center Crossing that November afternoon. That crossing was “easy-peasy,” Lacey told investigators, and they had the option to cross again at the same spot. They went back to Grandfather to play board games.
Dad drove, Mom sat next to him in the only two bucket seats up front. Seven children were behind, four from Daniel and Lacey Rawlings and three from Daniel’s brother Jay and Lori Johnston – who are both divorced – both showed up for the hearing. The children occupied a bench-style seat with a seatbelt-style harness that was not used. The children kept begging the adults to cross the really thrilling creek that is now a torrent in the narrower Bar X traverse again. The parents talked about it and Lacey told Daniel: “I don’t care. The kids are having fun,” and off we went.
The rest is terrifying. The vehicle sank, all occupants, all unbelted, were swept through the windows; Dan and Lacy’s children, Willa and Colby, were lost; 11-year-old Austin, daughter of Jay Rawlings and Lori Johnston, was also killed. The children’s bodies were found in the following days. Emotional expressions took up the whole day in court. Below is a summary.
“This is not a tragedy. It’s a crime with a tragic outcome.” Soos began his presentation. It’s also not an accident, he stressed. A tragedy is a tornado. An accident is an inadvertent inattention, such as missing a stop sign or speed limit. This was done on purpose, he said, so the Rawlings have pleaded guilty to every crime they were accused of.
He lamented that no one understood what really happened that fateful afternoon. His office has been criticized from the start for filing criminal charges at all, he said. But the truth, he claimed, had eluded the public. The County Adult Probation Office, which wrote a prejudice report, missed it, the defense didn’t mention it, it was never on the media or social media, and politicians who were into “soapboxes” to get a bridge there did. Don’t get it either. Soos revealed that the real reason Daniel, with Lacey’s approval, pulled off the fateful act was because the kids kept crossing the stream because it was so much fun, and the parents caved in.
That doesn’t necessarily merit punishment under the circumstances, Soos argued, but the court must make a clear statement to the public about the consequences of such behavior. He conceded to the court that it was a difficult case, that Soos assumed the judge “has a heart under that robe,” but justice is sometimes difficult, he argued.
His site produced five living witnesses, including the mother, maternal aunt and grandmother of the late niece Austin, and they summed up their view. One of them spoke of the lingering guilt that one of the boys feels when Austin was torn from his clutches by the raging water and disappeared. They argued that there are penalties for not having a pool fence, leaving a child in a hot car, and not restraining a child while driving. The public needs to know that when someone carelessly killed three children, as in this case, the message needs to be heard that there is a legal consequence, they said.
Yellow was the color of the day. A large crowd of supporters gathered outside in the street, hallway and courtroom, many wearing bright yellow “Rawlings Strong” t-shirts. In fact, the ad prompted one of Austin’s family members to tell the judge that it looked like a football game. She said that this case isn’t about “how many cheerleaders you have or how strong you are.”
Daniel’s advisor was Bruce Griffen; Lacy was represented by Katheryn Mahady, both Flagstaff law firms. They had driven down that morning and stopped at the Bar X intersection to prepare for the day ahead.
In court filings, the attorneys produced 100 letters in support of Daniel and about 50 in support of Lacey. The judge said he read them all. The defense personally produced a bishop, a principal, a business owner (Lacy’s employer), coaches, friends, family, and the two surviving Rawlings children. All described a hardworking, generous, loving family that, if the parents were locked up, would again victimize the very children who have already lost so much.
Lacy said the family had quilts made from the lost children’s clothes and put up two white Christmas trees in her memory each year; a memory that will never fade. They spoke of the sheer agony and pain of losing “half their children,” and no earthly power could punish them more than the burden they will carry forever. Daniel said that he was in bed at night and just wanted to come back that late afternoon and make a different decision.
Griffen coined a phrase “the Rawlings reflection” before deciding to heed the children’s plea for an exciting adventure by recrossing the creek at a different location. From images and video of the creek, which many speakers dubbed “the river,” Griffen listed the many dangers involved in deciding to drive into the swollen creek, like ignoring the huge “road closed” sign in the middle of it Road, the permanent Do Not Cross In Flood sign and the “Turn back, do not drown” warnings. He stressed that at that moment of Rawlings’ reflection, the parents had simply overlooked how dangerous it was to do so.
Near the defense table in the court well is a giant grandfather clock that Griffin said he heard tick tick tick throughout the hearing, he said. In a transition that didn’t really make sense, he asked Judge Wright to set a starting point for his client’s new chapter in his life today, a life in which Daniel promised to do whatever it takes to regain the trust he’d lost in that spectacularly tragic day.
The American justice system, like its government, is one of the checks and balances. A judge does not have a free hand to make judgments on a whim. Rather, there are laws, court rules, constitutional considerations, and precedents that the court is obliged to follow. There are four factors that determine whether a defendant will be imprisoned, Judge Wright explained.
The first two factors, public safety and offender rehabilitation, have little application here, Wright said. The Rawlingss have no criminal record, do not pose a threat to the general public, and Rawlingss do not have the character of persons in need of rehabilitation, the judge reasoned.
The third factor is punishment, but in this case, incarcerating the Rawlings would hurt the very victims, who are not at fault but are bearing the brunt of the consequences, Wright noted.
As for the last factor, to ensure that the public recognizes the illegality of the defendant’s conduct, the court was somewhat shaky. Sending Daniel to jail and sending Lacey to jail would no doubt draw public attention to the wrongfulness of the act. But the court appeared to apply some sort of balancing test, noting that the judge has an obligation to give victims’ views respect and weight, and most victims supported parole, and the various speakers did, too. Also, forbearance would benefit the survivors.
In Wright’s analysis of criminal laws, he concluded that there are aggravating factors such as multiple victims, who caused great harm, the trust placed in the defendants, and their complicity in one another. Mitigating factors included no criminal record, acceptance of responsibility, great regret, ongoing family commitments, and strong support from her family and community. This last part is based on the notion that those with strong support are most likely to succeed on trial.
For seven Class 4 felonies, Lacey will be on probation for four years, with conditions including the obligation to remain a law-abiding citizen. No jail time, no fine, but some nominal court fees and a $65 monthly probation fee.
For three Class 2 felonies and seven Class 3 felonies, Daniel will be on probation for five years, no jail, no jail, but he will have to pay a fine plus surcharge of $89,000 in monthly payments over 5 years and various other courts and probation fees. In the event that a victim comes forward in the next 30 days with a demand for redress, meaning that the defendants have caused economic damage, they must pay it.
There is no right of appeal against a judgment handed down after a guilty plea. In the end, all four surviving Rawlings left the courthouse to register the adults with the parole department for the first time. They are expected to transfer oversight of their parole to Navajo County.
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