QuickTake:

During a sentencing hearing for Brandon Daniel Smith, family members of the victim, Haley Mackin, said they could not understand Smith’s actions. “I asked you several times to just walk away … but you couldn’t, and I don’t understand why,” her father said.

Brandon Daniel Smith had been told by members of Haley Mackin’s family to leave her alone, they said during a sentencing hearing Thursday, June 4, for Smith, her killer.

“We all asked you to just leave her alone, be a bigger person,” Haley Mackin’s brother, Jordan Mackin, said in court. “Why couldn’t you have been the bigger person?”

Lane County Circuit Judge Bradley Cascagnette sentenced Smith to 23 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and unlawfully using a weapon.

Early on the morning of Sept. 1, 2024, Smith, 25, killed Mackin, 23, after setting up a ruse, Zori Cook, a prosecutor with the Lane County District Attorney’s Office, said in court Thursday.

Another man at a halfway house where Smith had been staying pretended to be interested in an escort date with Mackin, Cook said.

But it was Smith who was there at about 3 a.m. as Mackin emerged from her home, where he fatally shot her. Eugene police at the time said they responded to a report of a loud dispute with shots fired outside a home near Royal Avenue and Ruskin Street, in Eugene’s Bethel-Danebo neighborhood.

Smith and Mackin had been involved in an “on-again, off-again relationship for just over a year,” Cook said.

Less than five months earlier, Smith had pleaded guilty to a domestic violence misdemeanor for assaulting Mackin. A no-contact order had been put in place, but Cook said “both parties continued to have conversations.”

A friend of Mackin, who identified herself only as Corina, said in court Mackin had reported abuse and “wanted a way out, she wanted to escape the nightmare she was living in.”

“I truly believe if those warning signs had been taken more seriously, Haley might still be here today,” Mackin’s friend said. Corina declined to give her last name when asked by Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

“Haley loved the outdoors, going on adventures, spending time with friends, and most importantly, being with her family,” Mackin’s friend said.

“No explanation will ever justify what has been done to Haley. This was not an accident. It was not a mistake. It was intentional, it was planned,” Corina said.

Prosecutors initially charged Smith with second-degree murder, and a grand jury also returned an indictment on a second-degree murder charge as well as a charge of tampering with evidence.

Greg Scholl, a defense attorney for Smith, said in court Smith, “is extremely remorseful for what happened here.”

“We’re here because Brandon Smith has a lot of willingness to accept responsibility for what happened in this case. And that was a long time coming,” Scholl said, describing the negotiations that led to the reduced charge for Smith.

Asked by Cascagnette if he had anything to say, Smith said, “No, your honor.”

Cascagnette said the first 10 years of Smith’s sentence must all be spent in prison under the state’s Measure 11. Smith will be eligible for “good time” reductions and also alternative incarceration programs for other portions of his sentence. 

After his sentence, Smith will have two years of post-prison supervision. He also must pay $5,100 in restitution.

Before the judge handed down the sentence, Jordan Mackin, the victim’s brother, told a courtroom filled with about 25 people seated in the gallery — including several in support of Smith — that his sister was “such a good aunt,” and that he struggled to answer questions from his 3-year-old daughter about her absence.

His sister also was a good daughter, a good granddaughter and a good friend, Jordan Mackin said.

“Every morning, I get the same memories, the same phone call in my head, ‘She’s dead,’” he said.

“For that, I hope that your time is not pleasant. I hope that … when you get out, ain’t no other women that have to go through this,” Mackin said.

Craig Mackin, Haley Mackin’s father, read a statement from Jerrica Landin, Haley Mackin’s younger half-sister, who expressed anger at Smith.

Craig Mackin called Sept. 1, 2024, the “worst day of my life.”

“I woke up to the gunshots. I walked down to the end of my driveway, and saw my baby girl lying on the ground in a puddle of blood. Now that memory is in my head forever,” he said.

“I asked you several times to just walk away … but you couldn’t, and I don’t understand why,” Craig Mackin said. “But is it worth it, now that Haley’s not here and you’re going away? We wouldn’t be here today if you had just listened to somebody and just walked away.”