Judge gives defendant one week to decide on sentence

A 41-year-old Libby man who pleaded guilty to felony charges after running a Troy policeman off U.S. Highway 2 last October has been given a week by Judge Michael Prezeau to decide whether to accept a harsher sentence than the one he bargained for or take his chances at trial.

James Russell Carter pleaded guilty to criminal endangerment in exchange for the dismissal of additional charges of DUI and fleeing or eluding a peace officer and a recommendation from the county attorney¹s office for a three-year deferred imposition of sentence. At Carter¹s sentencing hearing on Monday, Prezeau told Carter he won¹t send him to prison but neither is he going to give him a chance to have the incident removed from his record after three years on probation.

³You¹re a 41-year-old man who could easily have killed people on this day, and I don¹t think I¹m just going to slap you on the wrist with a deferred imposition of sentence and give you a chance to clear your record,² Prezeau said.

Prezeau instead handed down a five-year suspended sentence, which would still put Carter on probation but would stay on his record. He told Carter he has one week to decide if he¹s going to accept the sentence or withdraw his plea and take his case to trial. He also ordered Carter to obtain a chemical dependency evaluation, which is one of the conditions included in the plea agreement.

³You need to straighten up because you¹ll find yourself in prison if you don¹t,² Prezeau said.

According to court documents, Carter nearly hit Troy police officer John Thrasher head-on on U.S. Highway 2 near Kootenai Falls last Oct. 9. Thrasher swore in an affidavit that as he was returning to Troy from Libby around 7 p.m., he saw Carter¹s vehicle — driving in the wrong lane alongside a logging truck — headed straight for him, neither slowing down nor speeding up to get around the logging truck.

Thrasher swerved his vehicle into the ditch on the right side of the road to avoid a collision, then turned around and pursued Carter toward Libby. According to Thrasher, Carter was traveling at speeds over 90 mph in his 1988 Dodge Ram and at one point passed another vehicle in a no-passing zone on a blind curve. The chase ended when smoke started coming from the engine of Carter¹s vehicle.

According to Thrasher¹s affidavit, Carter smelled of alcohol and could barely stand when he got out of his disabled vehicle. A breath test put his blood-alcohol level at .240 percent, three times the legal limit of .08.

Prezeau told Carter on Monday that it is fortunate that the person he ran off the road was an experienced police officer capable of executing an emergency maneuver to avoid a collision without losing control of his vehicle.