The Rev. Edgar Magaña leads a prayer at the scene of the collision that killed 25-year-old Colin Rodriguez Griswold, who was pursuing a public policy doctorate at the University of Arizona. Linda Rodriguez Griswold and Jerry Griswold listened Friday to the reading for their son.

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A 24-year-old Tucson man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday in the death of a UA graduate student who had hoped to one day change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Kristjan Lee Haley pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the January 2005 death of Colin Rodriguez Griswold, and he will have to serve every day of his sentence.

According to court documents, Tucson officers tried to pull Haley over in the early morning hours of Jan. 22, 2005, after they heard him squeal his tires while stopping at the light at North Stone Avenue and Drachman Street. Haley refused to pull over, instead accelerating away from them and going through a stop sign.

The officers called off their pursuit, but Haley continued on. When he got to the intersection of East Mabel Street and North Euclid, authorities said he went through it at 48 miles an hour, striking Griswold's car and forcing it into a block wall.

Griswold, 25, died at the scene, but Haley climbed out the window of his car and ran. Six days later, officers on the lookout for Haley at an East Side house saw him run out the back. He was arrested after a five-hour search.

Haley had been released from prison just weeks before the crash after serving more than two years on a conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Although Haley's sentence was a foregone conclusion as a result of the plea agreement, Pima County Superior Court Judge Charles Sabalos spent more than an hour listening to Griswold's family and friends describe their loss.

Exceptionally bright, kind, gentle, wise, noble, empathetic and modest were just some of the words used to describe a man family members and friends said would have changed the world.

Griswold, who was pursuing a doctorate in public policy, was studying how environmental policies affect the border. His family said protocols he helped design were adopted the week after his death by U.S. and Mexican environmental-protection agencies.

Keith Provan, director of the doctoral program in the Eller College of Management's School of Public Administration and Policy, said that although Griswold was at the UA for only one semester before his death, he made his mark.

Griswold's father, Jerry Griswold, told Sabalos his son didn't die as a result of an "accident." Instead, his son was taken as a result of Haley's "willful and reckless disregard for life."

A friend of Haley's told authorities they had had numerous beers at several locations before the crash, Griswold said.

Moreover, instead of stopping to render aid, Haley selfishly fled in order to escape another prison sentence, Griswold said.

Jerry Griswold and his wife, Linda, said they heard about their son's death on their 35th wedding anniversary.

Now that she can no longer discuss foreign travel, politics and culture with her son, Linda Griswold said she has a "gigantic hole" in her heart.

Griswold's sister, Breca Rodriguez Griswold, spoke of her agony at getting married a few months ago without her brother, who was also one of her closest friends.

A cousin and an uncle read excerpts from more than a dozen letters written by friends and other family members before a slide show of Griswold's life was played.

Sobs were heard when, in one letter, a friend bemoaned the fact he didn't talk to Griswold just a few more minutes the morning he died.

If he'd only played one more song on the compact disc Griswold gave him for Christmas, the friend said, maybe he'd still be alive.