Hunter who shot, paralyzed UO student sentenced

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Jesse McLaughlin

By Associated Press

Story Published: Jul 22, 2008 at 8:50 AM PST

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - A hunter who paralyzed a University of Oregon student in an accidental shooting pleaded guilty to felony assault with a firearm, but will not have to spend any time in prison.
     
Derek Eli Madsen, 28, of Veneta was sentenced Monday to three years on probation and 150 hours of community service. He must also pay $20,000 to Jesse McLaughlin.
     
Madsen, while driving with his girlfriend on a rural road near Eugene on Oct. 13, noticed movement in the brush. He stopped his Jeep and fired a .17-caliber varmint rifle at what he thought was a skunk.
     
He hit McLaughlin, who was playing paintball with friends.
     
"My apology, as deep as I can say it, can't go deep enough," Madsen told the victim's father, Joe McLaughlin, in court.
     
To make a videotaped statement for court, Jesse McLaughlin relied on his mother to read his lips and repeat his words.
     
"I can't talk. Can't eat. I get fed by a can through a tube that goes in my stomach," said McLaughlin, who lives in an adult foster home. "I can't taste anything. I can't smell anything. I don't feel or control anything below my neck. I can barely even move my neck."
     
He continued: "Before this, I was a regular college student. I was just having fun, going to school, enjoying life, working. Now I sit in my room and stare outside at the back of a shed."
     
Joe and Melissa McLaughlin told Lane Count Judge Gregory Foote about the financial and emotional toll the injury is taking on them.

He said for Madsen to be truly remorseful he would have to pay for Jesse McLaughlin's care because it is unfair to expect the victim's family and community to pay the bills.
     
"Where is the justice in that?" he asked.
     
Facing Madsen, Joe McLaughlin suggested the shooter try to spend one day as immobile as his son. He said if Madsen had only stepped from his vehicle, he would have realized people were in the brush.
     
"There are too many idiots out there doing the same thing," he said.
     
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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