A man has been sentenced to a 3½-year term for driving drunk, high and without a license when he broadsided a car in Minneapolis last fall and killed a cancer researcher traveling home from her second job at a hospital.
Kenneth D. Spencer Jr., 26, of Maple Grove was sentenced Thursday in Hennepin County District Court after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the collision that killed 24-year-old Ebony Miller of Minneapolis shortly after 2 a.m. Nov. 18 at SE. 10th and University avenues .
The prosecution had sought a sentence of from four years to five years and nine months.
Judge Lisa Janzen acknowledged during sentencing Spencer's acceptance of responsibility and his genuine remorse in deciding on a term near the lower of state sentencing guidelines, said County Attorney's Office spokesman Nicholas Kimball.
Defense attorney Peter Rainville wrote in a court filing earlier this week that Spencer should be spared prison and instead given probation.
"An executed sentence in prison would be unnecessarily harsh and the least productive form of punishment for a young man who merits saving rather than disposal, and whose offenses are of an unintentional nature," Rainville wrote.
With credit for time in jail after his arrest, Spencer is expected to serve just shy of two years in prison and the balance on supervised release.
Spencer had never had a Minnesota driver's license before the crash, according to the state Department of Public Safety. Since April 2018, he has been convicted five times for driving without a license in Minnesota — once while traveling 104 mph in a 50 mph zone — once for auto theft and once for fleeing police in a vehicle.