Man sentenced for accidental fatal shooting
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IDAHO FALLS — An Idaho Falls man will spend time on probation after pleading guilty to inadvertently shooting a man in 2019.
On Monday, District Judge Dane H. Watkins Jr. ordered Jose Antonio Ruiz-Juarez, 35, to spend eight years on felony probation. Ruiz-Juarez pleaded guilty to felony involuntary manslaughter after shooting and killing Michael A. Ephram in May 2019 in a rural area west of Idaho Falls.
Watkins also ordered Ruiz-Juarez to complete 120 hours of community service and withheld judgment in the case. Withheld judgment means that if Ruiz-Juarez is successful on probation, the conviction could be removed from his criminal record.
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Investigators say Ruiz-Juarez did not initially know he had shot anyone until a bystander frantically ran over and told him the news. According to an affidavit of probable cause obtained by EastIdahoNews.com, Ephram and some family members were target shooting on the rural property off U.S. Highway 20. Ruiz-Juarez was also shooting in the area with another party.
At some point, Ephram fell to the ground bleeding from the head as people heard shots coming from another direction. The group found Ruiz-Juarez using a borrowed semi-automatic rifle shooting at a log sticking out from an old bunker.
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“In this position when Jose was shooting to the east, he was shooting in an upward trajectory,” detectives wrote in their report. “Jose would have been unable to see what was on the other side of the hill.”
Watkins suspended a one-to six-year prison sentence. Ruiz-Juarez will have to pay $1,245.50 in fees and fines.