This sentence was handed down in Anoka County and is another sad reminder of the dangers of using your cell phone while driving.  Nobody wins in this story.  A family goes through the hell of losing a 14th month old boy, a motorist will go to jail and live with this burden for the rest of their lives - all because they couldn't wait a little bit to call somebody back, they had to look down for their phone.  In the past I've been guilty of letting my cell phone be a distraction, but I've made a personal promise to myself to not let that happen again because of stories like this.

A motorist whose car rear-ended another vehicle as she reached for her cell phone, setting off a chain-reaction crash that killed a 14-month-old boy, was given a maximum four-year sentence Tuesday by an Anoka County judge.

Jessica Howe sobbed uncontrollably when Judge Alan Pendleton handed down the sentence. Pendleton said that he found the sentencing very difficult but that when he weighed the options of either a shorter or a probationary sentence, he couldn't find a reason to validate something other than the maximum.

Before the sentencing, the parents of Grayson Jett gave emotional statements to the judge. Both parents said that at various times since the March 2010 accident in Columbia Heights they didn't feel they could go on with their lives.

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