Man gets 15-year term for fatal crash in 2012

A Sherwood man was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison after a four-day trial for drunkenly causing a chain-reaction vehicle crash in Little Rock that killed a 60-year-old grandmother two years ago.

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The sentence imposed on Mack Louis Hinson III by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims, acting at the recommendation of the jury, was five years short of the maximum 20 years available for negligent homicide, a Class B felony when caused by drunken driving.

Hinson did not testify, but before sentencing apologized to the three daughters of Narjis Meti, saying he would never do anything to deliberately hurt anyone. He can qualify for parole after serving 2½ years.

The nine women and three men took about three hours to convict the 36-year-old father of three for Meti's October 2012 death in the 12900 block of Cantrell Road.

Meti was on her way home from visiting her oldest daughter, 39-year-old Linda Fellone, in Maumelle when a Dodge pickup crossed into oncoming traffic, crushing her 2005 Mazda 6. Police said the woman died instantly and the impact launched the pickup into the air over the car.

Fellone testified through tears about how she and her sisters learned their mother was dead when they drove up on the crash site while looking for Meti because she hadn't made it home.

Hinson was not the driver of the Dodge pickup that killed Meti, but police blamed Hinson for the fatal collision, saying his Toyota Prius forced the pickup into Meti's path while driving as fast as 70 mph in a 45-mph zone.

Testing showed prescription anti-anxiety medication in his blood, along with a blood-alcohol level at 0.12, 50 percent higher than the 0.08 legal limit, although the defense argued that contamination at the state Crime Laboratory made those results worthless.

In closing arguments, deputy prosecutor Kelly Ward called on jurors to focus on what Hinson did in the aftermath of the collision. Other drivers stopped to try to help, but Hinson "hid like a coward," Ward told jurors.

He didn't pull over until he got someplace where he could hide from authorities, get rid of any incriminating material in the car and call relatives to go help him, Ward told jurors, pointing to phone records that showed the 10 calls he made. Hinson didn't come forward until he was good and ready with a cover-up for what happened, she said.

"What do you do when you're in an accident where someone died? [If you're Mack Hinson] you park behind a Starbucks, you stay there for 30 minutes and you clean out your car," she said. "Thirty-eight minutes he stays away. What is he doing this time? He's trying to figure out what he's going to do because he's drunk."

Ward warned jurors against the "red herring" defense that wanted them to believe a defective steering component in the pickup was largely to blame for the woman's death. She said Hinson's lawyers were trying to keep jurors from looking too closely at Hinson by offering them meaningless questions about Crime Lab procedures, a dubious private probe of the collision and pointless challenges to police methodology.

The proof of Hinson's wrongdoing is a puzzle, with jurors having all of the pieces, deputy prosecutor Jill Kamps said. There's the physical evidence -- scuff marks on tires, burned rubber on the cars and skid marks on the roadway -- the eyewitness testimony of other drivers, who said they saw Hinson drive into the Dodge, and Hinson's actions after the collision, Kamps said in closing.

Defense attorney David Cannon asked jurors not to convict his client just because someone had been killed.

"This case is a tragedy for everyone," he said. "Just because it's a tragedy doesn't mean it's a crime."

Cannon said the blood-alcohol results from the Crime Lab couldn't be trusted, saying contamination at the lab raised too many questions about whether the results were reliable.

"The state wants to lock my client up by using contaminated evidence," Cannon said, telling jurors the lab is more concerned with efficiency than reliable test results.

No one thought Hinson was drunk that night, Cannon reminded the jury. He told jurors they were better off relying on police observations of how Hinson carried himself that night. There were no reports of Hinson smelling of alcohol, stuttering from drunkenness or being unstable on his feet, Cannon said.

Hinson showed no sign of intoxication despite being scrutinized at the scene by crash investigator Ralph Breshears, who is "The Man" at the Little Rock Police Department for investigating drunken driving, the attorney said.

Skid marks in the road and minor damage to the Prius show the pickup driver was at fault, Cannon told jurors.

"It didn't happen the way they want you to believe it did," he said. "If he really wanted to flee, he could've kept going. Nobody would know. He stopped at the next safe spot ... and went back."

Metro on 12/18/2014

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