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John Kelsey is serving a 20-year sentence for a 2-year offense February 15, 2019
In 2015, John Kelsey was convicted of first degree fleeing and eluding. Fleeing and eluding in the first degree means resulting in death:
Because this was his fourth felony and it was a felony punishable by five years or more, Kelsey's sentence was bumped up from 15 years to a minimum 20, maximum 45 years. It could have been life:
(His prior felonies were over 13 years prior; two of them were marijuana offences.)
If Whitaker hadn't crashed, it would have been fourth degree fleeing and eluding, "a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both." (750.479a(2) of the Michigan Penal Code)
Kelsey has been either in jail or prison since December 2014, over 3 years. He is currently at Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe in the U.P. The following is from his record on OTIS, the Department of Corrections Offender Tracking System:
I was able to find a couple of other cases of fleeing and eluding resulting in death, and the sentences were much lighter. Davante Grover actually did kill someone. While fleeing police in Flint in July 2016, he crashed into another car and killed a 42-year-old woman, the driver of the car. The woman's husband was also injured and another woman received critical injuries. He got off with minimum 4.5, maximum 6 years. (source) This is from his OTIS record:
In December 2015 - again, in Flint - Curtis Lee was fleeing police when the State Police officer pursuing him hit another car, killing one person and injuring 2 others. (source) Although fleeing "resulted" in death - same as with John Kelsey - Lee was imprisoned for only a little over 3 years. In this case, the prosecutor apparently did not think he could get away with pinning responsibility on anyone but the officer, who received a 30-day suspension and a transfer. This is from Lee's OTIS record:
John Kelsey was unfortunate in that it was a cop who got killed rather than an ordinary citizen. Whitaker was a popular member of the same law enforcement establishment responsible for Kelsey's prosecution - he was one of their own. And not only was he killed, he was outrun by a guy driving a 2003 Yukon Denali XL.
The law needs to be changed. No one should be penalized for a crash or injury or death he did not cause, even if the crash occurred while he was fleeing the police. In the section of the Michigan Penal Code that deals with fleeing and eluding, "results in" should be replaced with "causes". And it should apply retroactively.
For more on the Kelsey/Whitaker case, see Overkill: Avenging the Death of Deputy Grant Whitaker.
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com, or call or text me at 517-505-2696. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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Public
Policy
Ingham County Sheriff Deputy Grant Whitaker was pursuing Kelsey shortly
after 2:00 a.m. on December 7, 2014. He was driving approximately 117
mph on a 2-lane blacktop when he lost control of his cruiser and crashed
into a tree. Kelsey was not involved in the crash. Whitaker's death was
due to his own reckless driving. But the law does not say "If the
violation causes the death of another individual"; it says
"results in".
