Second-degree murder charges against the father and cousin of an 11-year-old girl who died of hypothermia on Christmas Day have been reduced to involuntary manslaughter.
Motions to amend the criminal complaints against Robert E. Aragon and Kenneth S. Quintana were filed late Tuesday by Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney E. Scott Paul and signed the following day by Magistrate Court Judge Mark Ingram.
Paul has declined to discuss the case with news media because of a court-ordered gag order. However, he was admonished by Ingram during earlier court proceedings to find strong justification for second-degree murder charges.
The manslaughter charges against Aragon and Quintana allege that the men caused the death of Sage Aragon "unlawfully and without due caution and circumspection, but without malice."
The earlier murder charges alleged that the men acted with malice. Under Idaho law, an accusation of malice does not require that the death be caused intentionally, but only that the act was done with "conscious disregard for human life."
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Second-degree murder in Idaho is punishable by a prison sentence of 10 years to life, while involuntary manslaughter is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Aragon, a 55-year-old Jerome man, is the father of Sage, who froze to death after being permitted to attempt to walk some nine miles through frigid weather to meet her mother in the West Magic Reservoir area in southern Blaine County. Aragon allegedly caused the girl to make the walk after his vehicle became stuck in snow on West Magic Road.
Quintana, a 29-year-old Jerome man and the cousin of Aragon, was a passenger in Aragon's vehicle on the trip from Jerome to take Sage and her 12-year-old brother Bear Aragon to visit their mother, 32-year-old JoLeta Jenks.
Both men still face charges of felony injury to a child for allegedly permitting Bear to attempt the same walk.
The amended criminal complaints against Aragon and Quintana were filed shortly after a "memorandum in support of dismissal" was filed by Hailey attorney Douglas Nelson, who has been appointed public defender for Quintana.
Nelson argued in the document that his client had no legal responsibility or authority over the children and thus cannot be held criminally accountable.
"At the time Robert Aragon allowed Bear and Sage to start off walking to their mother's house, Kenneth Quintana possessed no legal authority to direct Bear and Sage to disobey their father," Nelson wrote. "Nor did Quintana possess legal authority to direct Robert Aragon to change his mind about letting the children start walking to their mother's house."
Nelson cited case law supporting his argument and concluded that "nothing Quintana did, or failed to do, gives rise to criminal responsibility."
Preliminary hearings for both Aragon and Quintana have now been scheduled for Jan. 23. Both men remain incarcerated, Aragon on $500,000 bond in Jerome and Quintana on $150,000 bond in the Blaine County Jail.
Robert Aragon
Kenneth Quintana
