A Crawfordsville teenager has admitted to smoking marijuana about two weeks before causing a two-vehicle crash a year ago that killed two of his classmates and an Indianapolis woman.
Tyler R. Sutton, 18, pleaded guilty this morning in Tippecanoe Superior Court 2 to three counts of operating a vehicle with a controlled substance causing death and feticide, all Class C felonies.
If Judge Thomas Busch accepts Sutton's plea with the Tippecanoe County prosecutor's office, at least two of those counts would have to be served concurrently - meaning the former North Montgomery High School student could spend 16 or more years in prison.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 17. Deputy Prosecutor Elizabeth Goodrich requested that at least an hour be allotted so victims' families and law enforcement officers who responded to the Sept. 8, 2007, crash near Stockwell can testify.
Sutton is accused of running a stop sign on County Road 700 East at Indiana 28 East that afternoon, colliding with a vehicle driven by Marilyn E. Gardner, 78, of Indianapolis. She later died from her injuries.
His passengers, Megan M. Hinds and Jennah S. Smith, both 15, died at the scene.
Hinds had been 24 weeks pregnant at the time, which Sutton said he knew before the wreck. Feticide is defined under Indiana law as the intentional termination of a pregnancy.
He said in court that the three classmates had been at the Tippecanoe Mall earlier that day. Sutton told the judge he did not remember details of the crash, but said he accepted what crash reconstructionists determined - including that he ran a stop sign and had been driving 66 mph at the time of impact.
The posted speed limit on County Road 700 East is 55 mph. Gardner's vehicle had struck the passenger side of his 2002 Dodge Stratus.
Toxicology tests taken after the crash showed that Sutton had marijuana metabolites in his blood, though Sutton's Indianapolis-based attorney, Dennis Zahn, disputed in court that the drug was present in the teen's urine.
Indiana law requires only that narcotic metabolites be present to establish impaired driving.
Though Sutton also admitted to smoking marijuana, he said today that it was his first and only time.
The teenager was 17 years old at the time of crash, but juvenile court Judge Loretta Rush waived him to adult court in March.
http://www.jconline.com/article/20081010/NEWS09/81010016
Logged
