Man pleads guilty to hitting, killing student teacher

Gary Lammert will spend 10 months in jail after pleading guilty to hitting and killing a student teacher in 2012.

Lammert pleaded guilty to homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle. He’s accused of hitting 22-year-old Katie Binning’s car as she was about to turn into Wisconsin Heights High School.

“It is long overdue for Lammert to not simply deal with this trial in order for him to be done with all of this, but to live with consequences as well” said Danielle Writz, Binning’s friend.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see Kate Binning,” Lammert said Tuesday. “I’ll have to live with that the rest of my life.”

On Tuesday, the judge denied Lammert’s plea deal of 60 days and sentenced him to 10 months.

The judge had previously given Lammert an ultimatum about pleading no contest. Had he pleaded not guilty Tuesday, he would have faced a felony trial in August.

“Because a no-contest plea in my mind is not accepting responsibility, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a no-contest plea in a case that’s…where the consequences of the loss has been so enormous,” Dane County Circuit Court Judge David Flanagan said

The maximum penalty Lammert faces was 12 months in prison.