Tank-Truck Driver "Legally Drunk" gets just a year in jail for roadside death.

[TowForce]

Tank-truck driver gets a year in jail for striking, killing man changing tires along Interstate 81

 

 

Robert A. Runyon, 50, of Newville, was sentenced to 1 year less a day in Cumberland County prison for this April 2018 accident in which he swerved his water-tanker truck off of Interstate 81 and fatally struck Robert Marshall, who was on the side of the road changing a tire.

 

A Cumberland County man was sentenced to 1 year less one day to 2 years less one day in Cumberland County Prison Tuesday for crashing into and killing a Washington D.C. firefighter while he was changing a tire on the shoulder of Interstate 81 near Carlisle nearly four years ago.

 

The victim, 57-year-old Robert Marshall of Hedgesville, W.Va., died in the Hershey Medical Center eight days later.

 

Robert A. Runyon, 50, and a resident of the 1800 block of Walnut Bottom Road, Penn Township, was legally drunk at the time of the crash and has since been engaged in treatment for admitted alcoholism. But Runyon received a huge legal break when his .225 BAC result, nearly three times the legal limit, was thrown out because Pennsylvania State Police working the crash did not fully explain his right to refuse a blood draw.

 

The district attorney’s office initially appealed the test’s dismissal, arguing all the circumstances of the case point to Runyon’s voluntary participation in the test. They also argued that because Runyon had a commercial driver’s license, he was bound by federal regulations that require BAC tests of CDL holders after any truck accident.

 

But a panel of state Superior Court judges said last September they wouldn’t overturn the prior Superior Court decision requiring a distinct reading of the rights regarding BAC tests where there’s been no concerns raised by the state Supreme Court, and the judges found the second issue was moot because there was no evidence that prosecutors had raised it in the lower courts.

 

Prosecutor Courtney Hair-LaRue said Tuesday that loss of the blood / alcohol test evidence hampered their ability to fully prosecute the case, and resulted in the November 2021 agreement in which Runyon pleaded to separate counts of homicide by vehicle and driving while under the influence with limits on the length of a prison term, instead of the more severe charge of homicide by vehicle while DUI.

 

The terms of the plea agreement gave Judge Albert Masland a range of nine to 16 months to work with for Runyon’s minimum sentence. Masland sought the middle of that range, and ordered that Runyon can be considered for work release after the first six months of incarceration.

 

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