Saturday, May 06, 2000
Driver in fatal crash sentenced 6 months
By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Clayton Kuehn awaits the beginning of his sentencing hearing.
(Glenn Hartong photos)
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A judge agonized over a truck driver's fatal mistake before telling him Friday he would spend six months in jail for an accident that killed four people.
Driver Clayton Kuehn was sentenced to the Hamilton County Justice Center. The 40-year-old Cadiz, Ky., husband and father who drove 400,000 miles safely before the Aug. 5 wreck wore an embroidered trucking company shirt as he was led away in handcuffs.
The decision by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Melba Marsh answered one of the most difficult and emotional issues in the case: How much punishment does an accident deserve?
Katherine Upton, whose daughter died in the crash, testifies in the victim's impact phase.
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The judge said she had been up until early Friday morning thinking about her decision, reading the friends' and relatives' statements that were spread across her bedroom floor. She had interviewed the jurors who convicted Mr. Kuehn in March of four counts of involuntary manslaughter.
Their consensus: Any of us could have been driving.
Judge Marsh began by saying she knew some would disagree with her decision. Then she forbade Mr. Kuehn to apply for a driver's license anywhere for the next five years and ordered him to pay restitution to the victims. After he's released from jail, he'll be on probation for five years.
He could have gone to prison for two decades, five years for each of the Knoxville, Tenn., victims killed on their way to a church outing at Kings Island. All were members of the Eternal Life Harvest Center's Restoration Outreach program in Knoxville.
Prosecutors said the wreck on Interstate 275 happened because Mr. Kuehn did not maintain enough distance with his 75,000-pound tractor-trailer.
Judge Marsh.
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He will be the last person in Ohio to be sentenced under old guidelines for the involuntary manslaughter charge. In March, a change in the law enacted last year by the Legislature makes Mr. Kuehn's crime a misdemeanor.
Mr. Kuehn's attorneys asked Judge Marsh to sentence him under the new guidelines. She rejected the request.
Mr. Kuehn stumbled through his prepared statement, saying he couldn't find words adequate enough to express the remorse in his heart. He said he relives the accident every day and, if he could, would do anything “in a heartbeat” to bring back the four dead people.
After the decision, the victims' nine friends and family members stood outside the courtroom and prayed and held hands. Prosecutors joined them. They prayed for their lost loved ones and for the strength to carry on without them.
Their preacher, the Rev. Patrick James Davis, pointed out earlier that the families have handled the trauma with grace. They never tried to use the media to exploit Mr. Kuehn's situation, he said.
Each family member interviewed after the sentencing said they asked for justice, but never specified publicly how much time they wanted Mr. Kuehn to endure.
That, they said, was for the judge and God to decide.
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