On August 14, 2015, we lost two members of our family. Their car was struck by a wreck-less driver, Walker Musso on their way home and was killed on impact. Their bodies were burned and ejected out from their car. When we held their funeral, it was closed caskets because of how bad the body was burned. I have always felt like since I did not see their faces and body inside that casket, it was like they were just on a very long vacation or moved somewhere far away.

Since the crash, my family has been fighting hard for this case. We finally got Musso to plea guilty to 3 charges against him, 2 vehicle manslaughter**(CORRECTION: 1 charge for vehicle manslaughter, 1 for negligence)** and 1 child endangerment. On Friday, February 5, 2022, we had finally reached sentencing day. We had wrote many impact letters to the judge to express how our lives had changed since the accident, how broken we all are, how losing not only one but two important family members in our lives. We expressed how them not being here has affected us, emotionally, mentally and physically. We thought maybe with these letters that we have written had expressed enough feelings and emotions that the Judge would see, hear and feel our pain and would listen to our story.

On the 5th of February at about 4pm, Judge Michael Sweet had made a final decision. After all day in the court. He had decided to to strike out the child endangerment charge from Musso after already pleading guilty and place him on probation.(CORRECTION: Judge Michael Sweet strike out 2 charges. Manslaughter and negligence and was considering on striking out child endangerment.) I thought that after all day hearing and reading our letters and expressing how we’ve all been impacted on this, the punishment would be some jail time. But Judge Sweet made a poor decision and said, “it’s not enough to land some jail/prison time”. When Judge Sweet said he was going to strike out one of the charges that Musso had pleaded guilty to, I was furious and upset. Musso’s brother begged for the charge to be dropped and Judge Sweet had told him that, he can’t do it because he had already pleaded guilty to it, but when his mother spoke about how having the charge on him will affect his career, because he want’s to be a baseball coach and was offered a part time assistant coach job.

Judge Sweet had made a poor and unfair decision. Walker Musso, killed two people and had been walking free all this time. He was given a second chance to live his life. He was able to walk from this, but what about our people? My uncle was making a difference in his life. He got his certificate and was able to land a job to support him and his wife. My aunt was on her way to complete her medical assistance certificate, where are their chances to achieve this in their life? Yet, Musso walked away with a broken wrist and we are all here with broken hearts. We put our faith in the judge to make the right decision to bring justice to Sai Vang and Molly Xiong, yet he believed that the plaintiff did not deserve jail/prison time.

Due to the Judge Michael Sweet's poor decision making in this case we all left that court room, more broken hearted, feeling like after all these years, we have failed in getting justice for our family. We were all left speechless and wanted to spend time alone doing something that would make this all go away. I sat on my bed, looking at my grandma’s picture and cried, my words to her, “Sorry grandma, we tried.” I wanted to take the pain away, I needed to express my frustration. That night, I couldn’t sleep, I kept hearing the words probation over and over again in my head. I kept replaying what I saw, I was so mad at myself, at why I didn’t I say anything. Why didn’t I make my voice be heard?! Would it had made a difference?
What made me upset too about this was, they were basically blaming our family for this crash. That it was our fault. It was my Uncle’s fault that caused this. They said, “Who would let their family members drive home drunk?” As if we did not care. Yes that night my Uncle did drink, but he only had about one or two beer and he had stopped because he was going to work the next morning hence, them leaving early. Our uncle did not appeared drunk to us, we would never let him go home if we saw that he wasn’t capable of carrying himself, yes it was his decision to drive home after having a beer or two, but who was the one who was going 130 mph on a 55 mph zone? If he had not gone that fast and, my uncle and aunt would still be here with us today. Who was the one who decided that they wanted to show off their car and race down the road? Who’s careless act, killed two people and injured one person?

It’s been 7 years since we’ve lost our family members. All this time we had not received any apologies, any remorse(until February after it was addressed). This person has been walking free, enjoying his life or whatever. Seven long years of fighting for justice and only to end up with probation.

I am writing this today to express how upset and disappointed I am with this poor, unfair decision made by Judge Michael Sweet. How he had stated that he cannot strike the guilty pleas that the plaintiff had made, and only to strike it in the end. How he decided that the plaintiff’s wreck-less driving killing two people did not deserve any jail/prison time. How he decided that only probation is good enough and let this man walk free from killing two people. Letting this man walk free with probation is not enough justice for us. It cannot bring back our people, but if he gets jail time then at least he had been help accountable for his action. Walker Musso needs to be held accountable for what he has done. Judge Michael Sweet needs to reconsider the sentence for Walker Musso of vehicle manslaughter and child endangerment.