Despite two DUI deaths, family finds compassion Theresa Conroy Philadelphia Inquirer 4/18/06 There are moments in life when the very nature of what dwells within us is exposed in its most primal state. Yesterday, it came to pass for relatives of Tracy Imani Davis as they stood before Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner to explain how her April 2005 death, by a drunken driver, has changed their lives. Most grieving families express raw sadness, anger, frustration and a desire for revenge. The Davis family, however, exhibited such grace, love - even humor - that the judge, no stranger to such courtroom emotion, appeared awed. "What I heard today from Imani Davis' family and friends is the most beautiful, compassionate, heartfelt assortment, collection of remembrances that I ever could have imagined," Lerner told the packed courtroom. It was even harder to imagine that such compassion could spring from the hearts of a family that has been here before. Eighteen years before Tracy Imani Davis was killed at the age of 41 by a drunken driver on City Avenue, her mother, Julia Davis, was killed at the age of 41 - also by a drunken driver - in South Carolina. The recent crash stoked all those painful memories for Tracy Imani Davis' sister, Angela Davis. Angela Davis, who was in the car when her mother was killed, spent two years in a wheelchair. Her sister's death threw "a bolt of lightning" through her body, Angela Davis said. "In my mother's crash, I was very much aware of everything going on. I heard the glass. I heard the metal," she told Lerner. "It feels like I hear that and feel it now." For sister Wanda Davis, the two accidents were linked by what she viewed as her own complicity. She was supposed to be driving her mother that day but wasn't dressed in time. Her sister was driving Wanda's car the day of her accident. The last time a drunken driver ran over the Davis' hearts, he got off without prison time. Not this time. Yesterday, Lerner sentenced Miranda Casalena, 24, to four to eight years in a state penitentiary, followed by two years' probation. Lerner went beyond the mandatory three-to-six-year minimum because Casalena had a previous DUI arrest. Casalena was arrested for drunken driving in July 2003, but qualified for a special probationary program for first-time offenders. The program, called ARD, or Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, offers rehabilitation in lieu of a conviction and prison. Although the record of the arrest was expunged after Casalena completed her probation, the earlier offense needed to be considered for her sentencing on the fatal DUI, said prosecutor John Carle. Carle said her punishment for killing Davis was "appropriate" considering her previous arrest for drunken driving. The judge said Casalena had failed to heed the "warning" of her earlier arrest. Casalena, who pleaded guilty to killing Davis and has been undergoing addiction treatment since the crash, added to the emotion of the hearing as she tearfully apologized - more sincerely and eloquently than most defendants - to the Davis family. "I am deeply pained by your loss and it will go on affecting me for the rest of my life," she said. Every time she goes to the doctor to deal with lasting injuries from the accident, she thinks about Davis, she said. She realizes that Davis probably would welcome the pain, "just to be here." Without looking toward her crying relatives, Casalena - the mother of a 5-year-old - walked through a side door and into a cell room. Theresa Conroy, conroyt@phillynews.com, 215-568-8278 Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/18/06