Wife of man killed by an illegal immigrant in ’07 crash hopes legislation will close loophole...

Bill rises from ashes of tragedy


Wife of man killed in ’07 crash hopes legislation will close loophole


By Katie Alberti
The Times Reporter (Dover, OH), March 24, 2008

Last June, Juan Us Ralios, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant, was charged with vehicular homicide after being involved in a crash on Rt. 250 west of Strasburg in which John R. Barr, 42, of Dover was killed.

Originally, Us Ralios, a Guatemalan native, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, a third-degree felony.

However, that charge had to be lowered to a first-degree misdemeanor because he did not have a driver’s license, according to Tuscarawas County Prosecutor Amanda Spies.

He could have been charged with the felony, she said, if he had been drinking or had a suspended license. Us Ralios had not been drinking and did not have a suspended license.

That means, under Ohio law, there are no grounds to charge someone with a felony if he or she kills someone as the result of a traffic accident and simply does not have a driver’s license. Barr’s wife, Kelly C. Barr, 29, of Dover, thinks the law has allowed her husband’s killer to get off almost scot-free.

“You wouldn’t fly a plane without learning to fly a plane,” she said as she held her and her late husband’s 3-year-old daughter, Alison, on her lap. “Juan should have been charged with the maximum sentence to show not only him, but other people, that there are consequences for their actions.”

Now, Kelly C. Barr, along with John Barr’s cousin Kelly S. Barr of Canton are working with legislators to fix what they call the “loophole” that allowed Us Ralios to be charged with the misdemeanor.

Last fall, the two began working with then-Democratic Rep. William Healy of Canton, who is now mayor of that city, to introduce a measure to close the loophole. Once Healy became mayor, state Rep. Allan Sayre, D-Dover, took over as lead sponsor for the bill, known as House Bill 512.

Under the proposal, Kelly C. Barr said, unlicensed drivers could be charged with a felony in such cases.

Sayre said Monday that he expects the bill to be assigned to committee next week and the committee chairman told him he wants to begin testimony as soon as possible.

The June accident wasn’t the first Us Ralios had been involved in. In January 2006, he was arrested for driving drunk and crashing into a tree at Strasburg. He told officials his name was Minguel A. Marcano, a name officials later would discover was a stolen identity.

Shortly after being charged, Strasburg police said, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement instructed them not to file charges because they were going to deport Marcano. They never did, and he returned to the area.

Because he was using the name Us Ralios when the accident in which Barr was killed occurred, officials had no idea he was the same man earlier identified as Marcano.

Us Ralios eventually was charged and pleaded no contest to four charges related to the Strasburg accident – operating a vehicle while intoxicated, no operator’s license, falsification and obstructing official business – and was sentenced to 140 days in the Tuscarawas County jail at New Philadelphia.

By that time he already had been charged for John Barr’s death and was serving his nine-month jail sentence.

“I had always suspected that this wasn’t his first offense,” Kelly C. Barr said. “It wasn’t surprising that he did it – it was how he went through the justice system, slipping through the cracks. ... If he had a license it would have been suspended, and it would have been a felony then.”

But a stricter sentence isn’t exactly what the Barrs are hoping to achieve through the legislation. They said they want to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.

“I am doing it for several reasons,” Kelly C. Barr said. “I don’t want my husband’s death (to be) in vain because he was such a law-abiding citizen. I just want everyone else to be.

“I’m hoping to teach the community that there are consequences to irresponsible behavior. Learn the laws and abide by the laws. I’m hoping to make the roads safer.”



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