Marine Who Killed 3 in DUI Crash to be Sentenced

A U.S. Marine Corps sergeant’s attorney will argue today that his client, convicted of killing three of his fellow servicemen in a drunken driving car crash in Dana Point, should be sent to a treatment center for post-traumatic stress disorder -- not prison.

But the prosecutor said he will ask that Jared Ray Hale be given the maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.

Hale, who was convicted Dec. 10, faces a minimum of 10 years and four months in prison, according to Deputy District Attorney Stephen Cornwell.

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Hale’s attorney, William Paparian, said he will cite a state law that allows for special consideration for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Hale should be in a hospital not behind bars because he was given a “40 percent disability rating” after an evaluation following a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Most of the disability can be chalked up to PTSD, Paparian said.

Hale was “self-medicating” with booze when he came home from war “like many veterans,” according to Paparian.

“Jared Hale needs the kind of intensive treatment that is not available when someone is incarcerated in a penitentiary,” Paparian said. “This situation should not become any more tragic than it already is.”

Cornwell noted, however, that Hale denied being drunk when he took the wheel the night of the Feb. 14, 2012, deadly crash and blamed the accident on one of the victims. Hale testified he lost control of the car because he was hit in the head while one of his friends in the front passenger seat swung his arm around to hit another passenger in the back seat. One of the other Marines was “flicking” the front-seat passenger in the ear, Hale testified.

Hale’s blood-alcohol level of .18, more than twice the legal limit, following the crash, contradicts the defendant’s account, Cornwell said.

“He agreed to be the designated driver so he had these unwitting victims who thought they would have a sober driver, so he put them in that position,” Cornwell said. “The evidence at trial showed that, according to the expert, he had to consume 13 to 14 drinks to get to that alcohol level.”

Hale claimed he only had one drink over the 24 hours before the crash, Cornwell said.

“My position is he got these 13 to 14 drinks into his system somehow or another,” the prosecutor said. “He drove there while wasted or he was drinking in secret. It’s one or the other, and once you agree to be a designated driver those options are terrible.”

Cornwell plans to read into the record victim impact statements from the families of the victims. The relatives live out of state and cannot attend the hearing, he said.

Hale was convicted of driving under the influence causing bodily injury and driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit causing bodily injury. Jurors also found true sentence-enhancing allegations of causing great bodily injury.

Hale was initially charged with three counts of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. His attorneys appealed the multiple great bodily injury sentencing enhancements for each of those charges and obtained a favorable ruling, which prompted prosecutors to refile the charges.

If Hale had been convicted of those charges, his sentencing range would have been seven years and four months to 10 years in prison, Cornwell said.

Hale and three friends, all of them stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, went to Hennessey’s Tavern in Dana Point the night of Feb. 13, 2012, according to Cornwell.

About 1:50 a.m. on Feb. 14, Hale and his friends left the bar and got into a Dodge Stratus, with Hale driving, the prosecutor said.

Hale was driving north on Golden Lantern Street in Dana Point when he lost control of the car about 2 a.m. at a curve in the road at Terra Vista, Cornwell said. The sedan slammed into a tree.

Sgt. Jeremiah Callahan, 23, of Chadron, Nebraska, and Cpl. Christopher Arzola, 21, of Westfield, Massachusetts, were pronounced dead at the scene. Cpl. Jason Chleborad, 22, of Rapid City, South Dakota, was pronounced dead about an hour after arriving at Mission Hospital.

All three were data network specialists who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2008.

Hale was treated for brain trauma and a broken arm.

Paparian said at the trial’s onset that Hale and the victims had been training together in the mountains of northern California to prepare for combat in Afghanistan when they were given “liberty.”

The day before they went to Hennessey’s, the defendant partied and drank with other Marines in Temecula, Paparian said. He said Hale returned to base and came down with a cold, which he medicated with NyQuil, a cold and flu medicine that contains alcohol.

Chleborad implored Hale to go with the other two, who were in the same elite combat unit, to Hennessey’s to drink and see a comedian’s stand-up act, Paparian said. Hale told the corporal he did not want to drink because of his cold, prompting Chleborad to ask the defendant to be their designated driver, the attorney said.

Other Marines at the bar that night have said Hale showed no signs of being drunk, according to Paparian. He said Hale only had one drink -- a toast with his buddies when they arrived at Hennessey’s.

Rain was a “significant factor” in the crash, Paparian said. “What happened that night was not a crime; it was a tragic accident.”

• City News Service