Case pending of drunk driver who killed teens in Kinnelon

Nearly nine years after Eugene Baum Jr. drunkenly ran down two teenage cousins on a road shoulder in Kinnelon, his conviction is under scrutiny by the state Supreme Court.

A former electronics salesman from Dover, Baum, now 53, was convicted by a Morris County jury in February 2010 of two counts each of aggravated manslaughter and death-by-auto for killing cousins Athear Jafar, 16, of Jefferson, and Mayada Jafar, 15, of Kinnelon, on April 20, 2006.

Baum, who had guzzled vodka and taken Librium -- meant to curtail an alcoholic’s desire to drink -- that day, left in a rented Kia from his home in Dover and almost made it to his mother’s home in Kinnelon. Around 8 p.m., he was driving on the shoulder of Kinnelon Road, where he struck the teenagers who were walking to a nearby movie theater.

His defense lawyer argued against guilty findings on the aggravated manslaughter counts, telling jurors that Baum suffered mental defects -- dependence on alcohol, cognitive impairment and depression -- that made him incapable of recognizing the risk of driving drunk. His blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was estimated to be .305 percent -- or nearly four times the .08 percent blood alcohol content at which a driver is deemed legally drunk.

Sentenced in March 2010 to 40 years in prison, with 85 percent of the term to be served before parole consideration, Baum appealed to the state’s Appellate Division, which found in 2013 that his sentence was technically incorrect because the judge double-counted some elements of the crime in arriving at the 40-year punishment.

A re-sentencing, which may not change the original sentencing at all after a fresh analysis, is still pending.

A further appeal was made to the state Supreme Court by the state Office of the Public Defender and the Supreme Court in July 2014 agreed to hear the appeal, which has not yet been argued.

The appeal centers on whether the trial judge gave an incorrect jury instruction on mental disease or defect that effectively negated Baum’s diminished capacity defense by blending the law on “self-induced intoxication” and mental disease or defect. The Appellate Division already opined that the judge’s instruction was not erroneous but the Supreme Court agreed to review it.

Hilmi Jafar, the father of Athear Jafar, said he came to terms with his daughter’s death long ago and would not care if Baum were released from prison. After Athear was killed in 2006, Jafar’s son was killed in a car wreck in Jefferson about 18 months later, and his wife, Asia, died on April 6, 2013, of cancer. He has another son and two daughters.

“To be honest, he drank but he didn’t mean to kill anyone. If he went out of prison or stayed in, it makes no difference to me,” the father said.

“God gives us this life, this gift, and no matter what we do, we can’t change the bad. You have to live with it and make it better, not worse. God gives and he takes, that’s what I believe in my heart,” Hilmi Jafar said.

He said he still remembers how Eugene Baum’s mother approached him after the trial and apologized.

“I said ‘It’s hard for us but it’s hard for you too. It could be any of us -- you kill someone or you’re killed,” Jafar said.

Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com