By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – Onalaskan James W. Taylor yesterday admitted providing alcohol to minors but didn’t admit to failing to summon assistance for 15-year-old Nickolas Barnes who died of alcohol poisoning after an underage party at Taylor’s home in Sept. 2009.
Nickolas Barnes
Taylor, 29, was in Lewis County Superior Court in Chehalis yesterday morning following a plea agreement in the case.
He was initially charged with second-degree manslaughter, but pleaded guilty instead to second-degree assault, pursuant to a doctrine referred to as “In re Barr”.
Judge Richard Brosey put it this way, as he questioned Taylor about the guilty plea:
“The evidence does not establish assault second, rather it establishes manslaughter second, but you’re pleading to it to escape the stigma of pleading guilty to manslaughter, right?”
“Yes,” Taylor replied.
The guilty pleas end a case that began after the Onalaska High School sophomore died on Sept. 21, 2009, with a blood alcohol level of .32.
James W. Taylor
Prosecutors alleged Nickolas and another teenage boy downed more than 11 shots of vodka, Nickolas passed out in the front yard and Taylor told the teenagers to “let him sleep it off.”
“Even tho the defendant knew he was out there in the yard, he did absolutely nothing to assist him and let him lay out there in the elements,” until he was urged by someone else to take him to the hospital, newly elected Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer recited in court yesterday.
Taylor, a father of four according to his lawyer, wasn’t charged until this past September, and has been free on $10,000 bail.
Taylor yesterday also made a so-called Alford plea to failing to summon assistance, pleading guilty but not admitting guilt.
He also pleaded guilty to multiple counts of furnishing liquor to minors.
The arrangement means Taylor faces a sentence between three and nine months in jail, as opposed to as long as 27 months if he had been convicted on the original charges.
Nickolas’s family called it a bitter day, and were especially disheartened that instead of being locked up immediately, Taylor was allowed to go home after the hearing, and return on May 11 to be sentenced.
None of the court proceedings can change the facts of the tragedy, Nickolas’s grandmother Susan Patterson suggested.
“It’s still the same thing,” Patterson said. “Two families are destroyed because nobody decided to call 911.”
“But at least something’s going to happen,” she said.
Meyer said afterward the agreement brings closure and “gets it done”.
“There were proof issues,” Meyer said. “This was a way we could get a definite result.”
•••
CORRECTION: This news story was corrected on Wednesday April 27, 2011 to reflect the correct name of James W. Taylor.
•••
Read background on the case “Remembering Nickolas Barnes” from Thursday Sept. 23, 2010 here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter