NC Drunk illegal kills boy CONVICTED

And another drunk driving illegal.........

Hernandez escaped several DWI convictions.


Boy's death means prison for Johnston man
Man repeatedly accused of DWI may then be deported

BY MANDY LOCKE, Staff Writer SMITHFIELD - Hipolito Zamora Hernandez didn't know 7-year-old Marcus Lassiter. He never meant him any particular harm; he never laid a hand on the boy.
But a jury decided Thursday that Hernandez had murdered Marcus, drinking himself nearly blind April 13, 2008, before driving a two-ton Chevrolet Camaro along the rural road beside which Marcus played.
Hernandez, a slight man who had carved out a life in Johnston County pouring concrete, could spend as long as 20 years in prison for second-degree murder. Immigration officials have vowed to deport him to Mexico after his release; he was living in the United States illegally.
On Thursday, moments before he was taken to prison, Hernandez, 31, declined the chance to say anything to the judge or to Marcus' family.
"The only thing that will stop this defendant from drinking and driving and risking everyone's life is prison," Susan Doyle, Johnston County district attorney, told the judge. She asked him to hand down the stiffest sentence. "He never learned his lesson," she said.
Hernandez evaded conviction several times before he killed Marcus. Three times since 2004, the courts dismissed driving-while-impaired charges. In 2007, when Hernandez was stopped again, he gave the officer a fake name. When he hit Marcus, another charge was pending against Hernandez.
"I am mad with the system," Marcus' mother, Sheila Lassiter, said Thursday. "I have no idea how this man got away with so much."
Doyle said Hernandez's record befuddled her, too. Last spring, Doyle instituted a policy prohibiting her assistants from dismissing DWI charges in an attempt to increase conviction rates.
A shattering death
Marcus' death shook Johnston County. It shattered his family.
His mother now spends evenings curled in his bed, trying to catch his lingering scent on his pajamas. Marcus was her youngest and an undeniable mama's boy. He was learning to play the drums at church; he had a tender heart and a hug for everyone he met, his family said.
His final day was as close to perfect as lazy spring Sundays can be.
The family had gathered at his grandmother's house in Four Oaks. Grandma and all the aunts were fixing supper in the kitchen. Kids played outside, plotting a game of basketball with some neighbor children.
The roar of a car engine pierced the calm. The women rushed to the window to check on the commotion. Sheila Lassiter saw her baby boy fly, knocked into the air by an out-of-control Camaro.
"That picture has stayed in my mind every waking minute since," Lassiter said as she waited for a jury to determine Hernandez's fate.
Lassiter raced to the yard, shouting Marcus' name. He lay still and silent in a ditch.
Hernandez stumbled from the cockeyed car, looked Lassiter's way and bolted toward a thicket of woods near Parkertown Road. It took a crew of officers and a specially trained canine about 45 minutes to capture him. Later, at the jail, more than two and a half hours after the crash, Hernandez's blood alcohol level registered .21. It is illegal to drive in North Carolina with a blood alcohol level of .08 or greater.
Marcus never woke after the crash. His brain was dead. Doctors kept his body alive through the night.
Now, pieces of him live on. Marcus' eyes gave a blind man sight. His kidney gave a 14-year-old the health to play basketball again. "That is my solace," Sheila Lassiter said.