A drunken driver who admitted to killing a Santa Ynez woman and injuring another person in a 2025 crash was sentenced last week to probation and less than a year of jail time, a sentence the Santa Barbara County district attorney called “shocking” and unusual for a DUI case that resulted in someone’s death.
Katelyn Fultz, 29, of Santa Barbara was driving on Highway 154 on May 1, 2025, when her vehicle crossed the double yellow lines into oncoming traffic.
She slammed into a sedan with two people in it, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The sedan’s driver, 24-year-old Carly Howard, was critically injured. She was taken off life support after several weeks in a coma.
The passenger, Albert Ineira, had major injuries, including a fractured foot.
Fultz had no driver’s license at the time. Toxicology reports showed she had a blood alcohol content level of 0.167%, which is twice the limit at which a person is considered drunk under state law.
She also had cocaethylene, a compound found when cocaine and alcohol are used together, in her system, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Fultz pleaded no contest to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence causing injury, and several enhancements.
The District Attorney’s Office argued for a prison sentence of 10 years and eight months, while the Probation Department recommended a term of seven years and eight months.
Judge Brian Aronson — a retired jurist from Sutter County who filled in at the sentencing hearing last Tuesday — instead sentenced Fultz to five years of probation and 270 days in jail. He also sentenced her to a six-year suspended prison sentence.
“I’m pissed off,” District Attorney John Savrnoch told Noozhawk.
Savrnoch described driving under the influence cases as avoidable, serious crimes. He said a lenient sentence such as this undercuts his office’s efforts to address the problem.
“She killed somebody. It doesn’t get worse than that,” Savrnoch said.
He added: “It’s shocking she received this sentence that is less than some sentences you get on misdemeanor DUIs. It’s shocking.”
There is no mandatory minimum sentence for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, Savrnoch noted. People convicted of that crime can receive probation or up to 10 years in state prison.
Fultz has a jail release date listed for mid-July, according to Sheriff’s Office custody records.
Seven people gave victim-impact statements at the sentencing hearing, including some of Howard’s family members, who traveled from Arkansas.
They spoke lovingly about her, shared their grief at her death and asked the court for consequences to Fultz.
Howard was excited about her 25th birthday and loved her family “so, so much,” her mother, Diane Howard, told the judge.
“Carly completed our family as my baby girl. Her siblings (Cassie, Jacob, Logan and Clayton) have lost their precious baby sister and aunt to their children,” Diane Howard said in her statement. “There is no recovering from this, only learning to live without my baby girl. Our family is forever changed. God help us.”
She and Roy Howard, Grace Howard’s father, wrote that Fultz had “ignored the laws” by driving under the influence, without a driver’s license and in an uninsured, borrowed car.
“Being intoxicated makes it clear to me that it wasn’t an accident,” Roy Howard said.
After the collision, he said, the family held out hope that Howard would recover from her injuries.
“We hoped, I hoped and prayed, and spent hours in the trauma center with tears that seemed to never stop. On May 21, she went home to Jesus, who has her in His arms. We will never see her again this side of heaven. Evil killed her, but God has her for eternity,” he said.
Howard’s sister, Cassandra Bell, said Fultz had “completely and significantly shattered our family, and continuously causes a depth of emptiness not many would understand or could fathom.”
She said her sister “will never be able to marry, never be able to have children of her own, and never be able to see another sunset, dance another dance or have any more dreams.”
“This mindless decision, made by the defendant, took my sister’s life away from her nieces and nephews, her parents, her four siblings, and many close friends and family. I hope the defendant feels a heavy remorse for the rest of her life.”
Bell asked the judge to sentence Fultz to 24 years in prison because Howard was 24 years old when she was killed.
“Let the punishment fit the crime, with all due respect,” she said.
Heidi Liebman said Carly Howard was a loving nanny to her three daughters and was driving to their home on the morning of the crash.
She asked that the judge “impose the maximum sentence allowed … not out of revenge, but because Carly’s life mattered. Because this death was preventable. Because accountability matters. And because releasing someone too soon who has shown such disregard for human life puts others at risk.
“Now all we can do is honor her by speaking for her, because she no longer can.”
Savrnoch felt so strongly about the judge’s decision that he issued a press release about the sentence and then discussed it further with Noozhawk.
“This is the first case where I really felt the need to inform the public what’s going on,” said Savrnoch, who has been DA since 2023.
The judge apparently explained the sentencing decision by saying it is what the victim would have wanted, Savrnoch said.
Her family does not agree with that.
Howard’s brother, Jacob Howard, posted online after the ruling that the judge had “failed” to do justice in this case and made a disgraceful decision.
“I’m her brother. Who are you?” he wrote, directed at Aronson. “I’m someone who can at least attempt to speak for Carly. You don’t have that right.
“How unimaginably pompous, and to do so in front of a broken family who pleaded with you to just do your job.”