The extended jury deliberations playing out in Carlos Fierro's trial likely won't occur when it comes to the case of an Eldorado man charged with killing four teenagers in June while driving drunk.

That's because Scott Owens will probably never even be indicted, much less be judged by a jury of his peers, according to court documents. Owens' attorney and prosecutors are talking about a deal in which Owens, 28, would plead guilty to unspecified charges connected to the four deaths and the serious injuries suffered by the surviving teen before his case is ever presented to a grand jury. That is according to a motion filed by his lawyer earlier this month in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.

A grand jury indictment or a preliminary hearing are the first step in a criminal prosecution.

Deputy District Attorney Doug Couleur confirmed his week that he and Dan Cron, Owens' lawyer, have talked about working out a pre-indictment plea. The negotiations are the main reason the legal time limits in the Owens case have been waived and re-extended four times, most recently on Sept. 11, according to Couleur and court documents.

Owens was allegedly driving in the wrong lane on Old Las Vegas Highway just after midnight on June 28 when he struck a car carrying five Santa Fe teens. Four of them — Julian Martinez, Alyssa Trouw and Kate Klein, all 16, as well as Rose Simmons, 15 — died at the scene. The driver, 16-year-old Avree Koffman, was seriously injured but survived.

Owens' blood-alcohol content nearly four hours after the crash was .16, twice the legal driving limit. Koffman was sober at the time of the crash, according to blood tests.

Owens, who turns 29 in a week, has been charged with four counts of vehicular homicide and one count of causing great bodily injury by vehicle. If found guilty of those charges, he would face a maximum of 27 years in prison. However, he could face an extra 20 years of prison time under habitual offender laws because he pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated within the last 10 years.

While Couleur declined to specify what charges Owens might plead to, a likely scenario could include a promise by prosecutors not to pursue the habitual time in exchange for Owens pleading guilty to the charges he currently faces. That might occur because prosecutors likely will face an uphill battle in convincing a state District Court to accept Owens' prior DWI conviction.

The problem is the conviction occurred in 2001 under then-Santa Fe Municipal Judge Frances Gallegos. Several local defense attorneys — including Cron — have successfully challenged drunken-driving convictions handed down by Gallegos on the basis that she didn't adequately advise defendants of their constitutional rights.

Couleur said a pre-indictment plea offers several benefits. Chief among them is that the victims' families can obtain closure earlier because they won't have to go through the lengthy trial process. It also saves judicial resources, he said.

"A plea deal doesn't mean anything is given up (by the state)," Couleur said. "It just means it's being resolved early in the process."

Police have completed an "extensive" investigation into the crash and turned over all their investigative conclusions and materials to the District Attorney's Office, Couleur said. He declined to comment on the specifics of the crash.

In his latest motion for extending legal time limits in the case, Cron said he received the final police report and other discovery materials related to the case on Sept. 4.

"... (A)dditional time is necessary to evaluate the discovery and pursue plea negotiations to attempt to resolve the case prior to presentment to the grand jury," Cron wrote in the motion filed Sept. 11 in Magistrate Court.

Cron did not return two phone messages Thursday seeking comment.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.