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Sampsell v. State2/2/2001
t an element of the crime charged. In pressing this argument, Sampsell relies upon an interpretation of the record that is different from our understanding. We quote from the comments of the prosecuting attorney:
The conduct of Mr. Sampsell that night was willful, there's no other way to describe it, and it was incredibly reckless. He chose to go out drinking that [night] with all of his friends from the base. He knew, like any law enforcement officer, he was indeed a security policeman at the base, about what the laws are and what they are not and how incredibly strict they are out at the base about drunk driving . His friends knew that, so they had taken a designated driver that night when they went out to [the bar]. You don't see that in this pre- sentence report. It's a very cold, sterile pre-sentence report.
And it's hard to try - I'm glad the families are here to give you a flavor of emotion of their children's lives, and the best I can do is try to help you understand the events of that night.
[The male victim's mother] indicated her son was at Perkins having dinner while Mr. Sampsell was getting drunk with friends at [the bar]. They went there, they drank for hours. They had a designated driver, took him back to the base, but he wanted to party. He wanted to go all the way down to Fort Collins, but he couldn't get anybody foolish enough to go out with. They tried to get him to stay. He chose to go, he chose to go back to [the bar], he chose to start drinking [their] massive, I believe, 25-ounce micro brews that by his count he pounded down eight or ten. Blood alcohol tells us .21. But we know he had been drinking continuously for at least five hours.
So he went back to [the bar] and continued to drink. He was making a very willful, conscious and deliberate choice. He drank there for several more hours, tried to pick up on a girl who turned him down. This apparently angered him. When everybody was leaving, they tried to et the keys away from him, but he would have nothing to do with that. He tried to fight one individual that tried to get the keys from him, pushed his way out of the bar, jumped into his truck, not only sped away, he ran through, by the witnesses' descriptions, red lights, and he was trying to get away from the friends that were trying to help him.
He chose to drive east on Dell Range, not west, not back to the base, but he chose to race down the road driving his, as we have heard the description, this Dodge Dakota truck he was very proud of. But it was within moments to become a 3,000 plus pound projectile that smashed into the side of [the male victim's] car as he was innocently going through an intersection taking [the female victim] home.
* * * That [the prosecuting attorney graphically described the collision] was the result of the willful and deliberate action of Mr. Sampsell.
* * * But that's what you have to take into account, all of his willful, deliberate, reckless choices he made that night that we are now trying to hold him accountable for.
[ ] The comments of the district court judge are also significant. He responded to the prosecuting attorney's remarks by saying:
I think it's true what [the jail chaplain] has said here, * * * and [defense counsel], and Mr. Sampsell himself and others, Mr. Sampsell did not intentionally take the lives of [the male victim] and [the female victim], but he intentionally and willfully got into his truck. And what makes it especially egregious, I believe, is that, as [the prosecuting attorney] indicated or according to the pr sentence investigation report, Mr. Sampsell was repeatedly and specifically warned and admonished by his frie
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