Guilty verdicts in racing death

A jury found two Coeur d’Alene men guilty of felony vehicular manslaughter Wednesday for the death of a 14-year-old boy in a crash two years ago.

Dominick F. Salois, 21, and Daniel W. Cutting, 20, face up to 10 years in prison in a crash prosecutors blamed on the pair’s decision to race their cars down a busy Coeur d’Alene street.

“Not just, ‘Oops, I made a mistake,’ ” said Marty Raap, Kootenai County’s chief deputy prosecutor. “The kind of stuff that really is just so crazy anybody should have known better than to do it.”

The men were teenagers when Isaac W. Norris died and his mother, Glenda Norris, suffered severe injuries when their 1987 Chevy Caprice was struck by Salois’ 2006 Ford Mustang about 11 a.m. Oct. 13, 2006, on Kathleen Avenue.

Norris was turning westbound onto Kathleen from Howard Street, following her husband, Craig, who was in a separate car. As Glenda Norris made the turn, police say, Salois’ Mustang and Cutting’s 2005 Subaru Impreza approached side by side at speeds up to 82 mph in the 35 mph zone. Cutting swerved to avoid the Caprice, while Salois’ car smashed into its right side, according to the Idaho State Police.

The jury of six men and six women took less than three hours to reach the unanimous verdict.

“I’m so happy,” Glenda Norris said. “I just hope that nobody else ever has to go through that.”

Salois and Cutting posted $50,000 bond after the crash and will stay out of jail until their Feb. 2 sentencing in front of 1st District Judge Fred Gibler. Neither had drugs or alcohol in his system, so the maximum sentence is 10 years instead of 15.

Their defense lawyers have said from the outset of the case that Glenda Norris caused the crash by pulling in front of Salois and Cutting, who have denied they were racing.

But witnesses for the prosecution testified that the boys reached at least 60 mph; an ISP report put Cutting’s speed at nearly 82 mph based on skid marks, Raap said.

“We really had witnesses from every conceivable angle,” he said.

About 30 people testified in the six-day trial, including Glenda and Craig Norris. Glenda Norris awoke at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle more than a week after the crash and doesn’t remember it.

Craig Norris says he didn’t see the crash, but he heard it as he drove ahead on Kathleen Avenue in his 1977 Chrysler Cordoba. The family was headed home to Hayden after shopping for eyeglasses for Isaac, Glenda Norris said. Craig Norris was in court for the verdict. Glenda was not. “I couldn’t go through all that again,” she said. “It just even hurt to look at them.”

The young men’s lawyers – Jim Siebe represents Cutting and Fred Loats represents Salois – couldn’t be reached for comment, and the Salois family declined comment. Cutting’s family could not be reached.

Glenda Norris described Isaac as a happy child with a great sense of humor who loved jokes, fishing, video games, football and animals. He died about two weeks shy of his 15th birthday, which he shares with his older brother, Nathan, Norris said.

“He was like the little light in our family – the person who kept things humorous,” she said.

Isaac Norris’ death is an example of what can happen when teenagers make poor choices, Raap said.

He recalled a dismissed potential juror who said he remembers showing his son a newspaper article about it. Raap said the man recalled telling the boy, who was about to get his driver’s license, “This here is what I don’t want you to be doing.”

“Hopefully there’s some parents having that discussion with their kids,” Raap said.