Update: Maus found not guilty of negligent homicide while under the influence

UPDATE: After close to five hours of deliberations, a jury found William Maus not guilty of negligent vehicular homicide while under the influence. As to the lesser included charge, negligent homicide, the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

Because the jury was only hung on the lesser charge, it is unlikely that the prosecution will continue to pursue the case.

Maus, who is slated to graduate from the University of Montana later this spring, quietly celebrated with the approximately 15 family members and friends who had gathered to support him.

Members of Joshua Stubbs' family, and some of the trial's key witnesses who had sat with the family throughout the proceedings, appeared visibly upset before leaving the courtroom.

POLSON — Prosecution for the state of Montana and defense for 24-year-old William Maus, presented their closing arguments in district court Friday morning.

The primary charge against Maus, negligent vehicular homicide while under the influence, stems from a 2009 fatal car crash in which Maus rear-ended 18-year-old Joshua Stubbs, pushing him into the path of a 24,000-pound logging truck. Maus and the truck driver, Clinton Shor, sustained only minor injuries from the accident; Stubbs later died at St. Luke’s Community Hospital in Ronan.

A blood sample from Maus, taken several hours after the crash, revealed the presence of marijuana at levels that, according to law enforcement, could have impaired his driving.

On Friday morning, after hearing from all witnesses, Judge C.B. McNeil tasked the jury with issuing verdicts on two charges: the original charge, negligent homicide while under the influence, or the added, lesser charge, negligent homicide. The former charge carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, the latter carries a potential 20.

In his closing remarks to the jury, defense attorney, Mike Sherwood, asked them not to convict his client of crimes that, according to Montana state law, involve “considerably greater than a lack of ordinary care.”

Sherwood admitted that Maus made a careless mistake, but reiterated that the charges against his client involve extremely high degrees of culpability.

“He wasn’t speeding through a school zone at 90 miles per hour,” Sherwood said. “This is not a case in which Willie was so grossly negligent that you, as jurors, should find him to have committed either offense.”

Sherwood also told the jury that they had received a “tailored” version of the truth from the prosecution; according to Sherwood, the prosecution failed to interview any of the witnesses at the scene of the crash, or any of the six health professionals who treated Maus and reported no sign of drug-induced impairment.

He told the jury that if the defense’s portrait of events seemed murkier than the prosecution’s, it was only because the defense was attempting to present the facts in their entirety.

“The truth that Willie told you had warts – but it was the whole truth,” Sherwood said.

Prosecutor Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson rebutted many of Sherwood’s statements in her 15-minute closing arguments, including the notion that the prosecution had painted an inaccurate picture of events.

“A tailored truth is not untruth,” Cole-Hodgkinson said. “Would you want everyone with an opinion or everyone who saw even part of the events to be on the stand?”

She asked the jury to weigh the costs and benefits of Maus’s actions. According to Cole-Hodgkinson, when Maus took his eyes of the road, he made a risky, and ultimately costly, move.

“In this case the defendant made a choice. In making that choice, he took options away from Joshua Stubbs and Clinton Shor,” she said. “Clinton Shor will feel guilt the rest of his life. Joshua Stubbs doesn’t have a ‘rest of his life.’”

In addition to the closing arguments, the jury had the opportunity to hear the testimony of multiple witnesses, including testimony from the defendant himself, the prior afternoon.

A key issue for the defense was establishing that Maus had smoked marijuana early enough in the morning that he would not have been impaired at the time of the accident.

Through phone records and his client’s testimony, Sherwood constructed a timeline for the jury that had Maus taking one hit of marijuana from his roommate’s bowl at 9:30 a.m., four hours before he left for work, and six hours before the fatal crash.

Sherwood also questioned his client about his attempts to avoid hitting Stubbs, in the moments immediately before the crash.

Maus testified that as he headed south on U.S. Highway 93, he momentarily took his eyes of the road, to move a pen from behind his ear to the passenger seat. According to Maus, when he looked back up, Stubbs’ red Explorer was decelerating rapidly. Maus said that his attempts to brake or swerve were futile, and the front, driver side of his car hit the rear, passenger side of Stubbs’ car.

“The red SUV lifted in front of my windshield, and as I slowed down, he came down,” Maus recalled during his testimony. “He whipped into the other lane where the logging truck t-boned, or broad-sided him, pushing him out of my line of vision.”

Toward the end of his testimony, Maus had the chance to address the victim’s family for the first time since the accident.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Maus, in tears, said to the Stubbs family seated directly in front of him. “If I could replace myself with him, I would do it instantaneously. I wish it would’ve never happened — no one should ever have to lose a son.”

Maus also stated that he holds himself responsible for Stubbs’ death, and affirmed that if he had been charged with a lesser offense, he would have pleaded guilty.

These few minutes of testimony provided the singular display of emotion from the defendant, who otherwise showed little expression throughout the court proceedings.

During cross-examination, Cole-Hodgkinson honed in on the issue of impairment, asking Maus multiple questions about his marijuana use.

She called into question his assertion that he used marijuana solely for medicinal purposes, to ease the pain of an ACL injury by pointing out that at no point prior to the accident did Maus attempt to obtain a medical marijuana license. In fact, records from Maus’s doctor show that at a January appointment Maus described the condition of his knee as “great.”

Cole-Hodgkinson also presented evidence suggesting that Maus was driving too quickly, and that he was following Stubbs too closely.

The jury is currently deliberating in this felony case.