Marcia “Marci” Kitchen will plead guilty Monday to running over and killing her daughter Kiya Kitchen and Faith Tsarnas while driving drunk, then fleeing the scene afterward.

“She’s pleading as charged,” Deputy District Attorney Stacey Eads said after a brief court hearing this afternoon. “The People have offered nothing.”

Kitchen.

Eads said the maximum penalty for Kitchen is “somewhat in dispute,” but it’s approximately 11 years in state prison.

Kitchen, 40, did not attend the hearing in the packed courtroom today. But her attorney, Deputy Conflict Counsel Meagan O’Connell, handed Judge Kaleb Cockrum a written plea form that Kitchen filled out. Her trial had been scheduled to begin Sept. 4, with argument on a defense motion for change of venue set for Aug. 27.

“That does change the nature of the proceedings,” the judge said after reviewing the plea form. “We were scheduled to discuss jury questionnaires today.”

An obviously emotional Joe Kitchen, Marci’s ex-husband and Kiya’s father, said outside court that he didn’t want to comment until Monday.

Kitchen is scheduled to enter her formal plea at 3:30 Monday afternoon, and the courtroom is expected to be packed — so much so that today Cockrum outlined a seating plan, giving priority to family and supporters of the victims. Kitchen will be allowed to bring six supporters.

“There will be no standing,” he said, “because that’s a security issue.”

The plea comes after more than two years of often-delayed court proceedings, including a preliminary hearing at which Kitchen’s teenage son testified that his mother arrived home intoxicated and said she had hit a deer. She then asked him to run her smashed-up Jeep into a basketball hoop in the driveway of their Fortuna home. He refused.

Kiya Kitchen and Tsarnas, both 14, were skateboarding on Eel River Drive the evening of July 12, 2016, when Kitchen’s car struck them from behind. Tsarnas died at the scene, and Kiya died the next morning at Oakland Children’s Hospital.

Kitchen was arrested after a two-month investigation by the California Highway Patrol. She immediately posted $750,000 bail and has remained out of custody. She initially was represented by private attorneys Ben Okin and Patrik Griego, but they were allowed to withdraw from the case in March when she could no longer afford to pay them. O’Connell has represented her since then.

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