A 22-year-old Dresden woman was handed a five-year prison term for impaired driving causing death in a 2021 crash that killed her best friend.
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Arielle Wall’s eyes welled with tears as a court officer handcuffed her and led her from a Chatham courtroom after Superior Court Justice Russell Raikes passed sentence Tuesday. He also banned her from driving for eight years after her release.
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Wall was driving a vehicle that hit a tree off rain-damped Longwoods Road, just west of Louisville, early on April 12, 2021. Her passenger and friend, Gabrielle Emery, 19, died as a result of the crash.
Wall had pleaded not guilty to impaired driving causing death, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and having blood alcohol over the legal limit.
At trial Sept. 14, 2023, Raikes found her guilty of impaired driving causing death and having a blood alcohol over the legal limit. The blood-alcohol conviction was stayed after sentencing submissions last month.
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The defense was seeking a conditional sentence, including less than two years of house arrest, while the Crown sought a six-year prison term and a 10-year driving ban.
In sentencing, Raikes said he believed what Wall said in a pre-sentence report: she was remorseful, regretted what happened, and wished she had died in the crash.
But that doesn’t diminish her high “moral blameworthiness,” he added.
Wall thing to drink and drive knowing it put herself, her friend and others in the community at risk, Raikes said.
Knowing it was a serious offense, he added, “She drove anyway.”
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Emery’s mother, Amber Harris, did not speak with reporters, but indicated she felt the sentence was fair.
Annette Caron, Emery’s paternal grandmother, agreed.
She’d worried Wall might draw a conditional sentence, a bad example for other young people, she said.
“If you drink and drive, there’s always consequences if you hurt somebody,” Caron said.
Emery’s aunt, Sheryl Emery, thought Wall deserved “a little bit more,” she said. “I don’t think she should ever drive again, because my niece will never see another birthday again, period.”
While there are cases where a conditional sentence can be imposed, Raikes said the law requires that the appropriate sentence be less than two years. In his view, a two-year sentence would not provide adequate denunciation and deterrence, he said.
Since 2010, sentences for otherwise law-abiding citizens convicted of impaired driving causing death have increased to five or six years as a deterrent, the judge added.
While Wall had no previous criminal or driving record, the loss of Emery’s “untapped potential that will never be realized” was an aggravating factor, Raikes said.
The judge said drinking drivers were like gamblers playing Russian roulette with their own and others’ lives.
“It’s an unnecessary gamble and it keeps happening,” he said.
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