October 27, 2003
After several delays, Judge George Reinhardt today sentenced Joshua Steele, 15, Bonners Ferry, to 10 to 15 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter and 25 years to life for sexual penetration by a foreign object for the October 12, 2002, bludgeoning death of his grandmother, Donna Mae Day, 60.
Initially, defense attorney Bruce Green said his client did not wish to address the court, but before the sentencing hearing ended, the teen changed his mind.
Two people who’d come to know Steele during his year in the Boundary County Jail spoke on his behalf. Donna Champagne, Moyie Springs, a child advocate for the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill, raised concerns over Steele’s age and blamed his crime on mental illness. Lynn Aldridge, Bonners Ferry, who met Steele while visiting her own son in jail, stated that in the time she’d known him, she came to believe that he didn’t relate to people as did other teens his age and that while she wasn’t an expert, she, too, believed Steele suffered from mental illness. She, too, asked for leniency, saying he deserved to benefit from a proper diagnosis and treatment.
Deputy prosecutor John Topp, however, told the court that great pains had been taken to determine whether or not Steele was mentally impaired, and that while four separate psychological evaluations suggested that he may have a mental illness, none was able to conclude with a diagnosis. All four physicians, in fact, raised concerns that they couldn’t be certain whether Steele responded honestly to their questions or whether he instead expressed suggestions given him by advocates in an attempt to gain advantage in sentencing. One went so far as to recommend that a more accurate analysis would only be possible after court proceedings had ended. All four indicated that Steele had an explosive temper, all four indicated a high degree of probability that, without incarceration or firm diagnosis and treatment, Steele was a high risk to reoffend.
In passing on the prosecution’s recommendation of life in prison without parole, Topp said the paramount issue was protecting society.
“The violence associated with this heinous crime justifies a life sentence,” Topp said. “I know Josh is a person of young age, but he committed an adult crime.”
Green disagreed with the contention that Steele may have been faking a mental illness, but didn’t deny that incarceration was warranted. Instead of locking him away for life, however, Green asked that his client be given the chance to see how he would respond to treatment.
“There’s no point in treatment if you’re just going to lock him away,” he said. “The record indicates he may have a treatable condition which would allow him to safely return to society. I ask the court to give him that chance.”
During the testimony, which included a statement by Day’s daughter, Ketta Everhart, who described Day as the ideal mother who set the example she followed with her own children, and a letter written by Duane Day, Donna’s husband, who related how many lives had been devastated by Steele’s senseless act and asked the imposition of a life sentence, Steele changed his mind and asked to address the court.
“I loved Donna,” he said. “She was the only mother I ever had. I can’t explain what happened. I want the chance to see what’s wrong with me. I punish myself every day, and I will never have my mother back.”
In passing sentence, Reinhardt said it appeared Steele did suffer a psychological disorder, and said it was quite clear he had an explosive temper, that he behaved erratically, that he was a loner with no close friends and no real social skills.
“Mr. Steele considers himself a risk to others and he does present a risk of future violence,” Reinhardt said. He went on to describe Steele as living more in a world of fantasy than reality during his year in jail, and said those fantasies, as described to psychologists, were full of aggression and the thought of sexually abusing others.
“Treatment outside prison would be ineffective and inappropriate,” he concluded. “To impose less of a sentence than what I am about to would minimize the seriousness of this cruel and heinous offense.”
He then handed down the sentences, ordering that they run concurrently, and remanded Steele to the custody of the state.