A man who killed two motorcyclists on Highway 463 in 2018 will spend twenty years behind bars. Madison County Circuit Judge John Emfinger sentenced James Devault, II Friday after he pleaded guilty to culpable negligence manslaughter. The sentencing order states:
THIS CAUSE came on for hearing in open Court on the matter of sentencing the Defendant, James K. Devault under and pursuant to the Judgment(s) of Conviction for the crime(s) of Culpable Negligence Manslaughter as charged in Count I of the Indictment, as charged in the indictment(s) and/or Bill(s) of information in Cause Number(s) 2019-0442 CT I, and the Defendant having entered a plea(s) o guilty to the said crime(s) on the 11ᵗʰ day of September, 2020, and the Defendant and the Defendant's attorney, Kevin Camp, and the State's attorney all being present and the Court, being fully advised in the premises finds and determines that: a) the victim(s) and the investigating officer(s) were notified in advance of these proceedings; b) the defendant's pl a(s) of guilty was/were entered WITHOUT a recommendation of sentence from the State; c) questions and comments from all interested parties were invited and those submitted ere received and considered; d) the Defendant and Defendant's Attorney were given an opportunity to address the court on all matters relevant to these proceedings including the presentation of circumstances in extenuation and mitigation; e) the recommendation o sentence, if made, by the State is hereby accepted and adopted by the Court as the sentence of the Court: and (f) sentence should now be imposed.
Devault was driving his Chevy pickup truck on Highway 463 near Fairfield Drive in Madison when he struck four motorcyclists. Devault claimed he dropped his phone and was looking for it while he was driving, ignoring the road. He veered off and plowed through the bikers, killing James Harper and Robert Lenoir. WLBT reported law enforcement said he had synthetic canniboid in his system.
The defendant was booked into the Madison County jail on October 15, 2019. He will serve 19 years in prison after the Court gave him credit for time served.
35 comments:
Yet intentional manslaughter in Jackburg gets you a blessing.
It was an accident, for God's sakes!
holy crap. 20 years for a plea deal in this case? I guess they were threatening second degree depraved heart murder if they went to trial. yikes. all the more reason to not text and drive
Why did this take about 24-months to resolve? Justice delayed is justice denied.
Wow. Seems harsh for an accident that did not involve a DUI. Under this precedent, anyone found to be negligent in a fatal crash could receive a similar sentence. Have never seen this in MS outside the context of DUI.
Somebody building a future campaign?
Have to agree with this being harsh. Not privy to the circumstances, but damn. Current LEO here.
He was driving under the influence. Media reports said he had "Synthetic Cannibinoid" in his system. It's always good to get all the facts out there.
Tragic all around. I hope every high school in the area talks about this, although adults are as bad. And awful for the families of the two guys who were killed while on a casual ride. Meanwhile, asshole ghetto rats fly up and down the interstate on their crotch rockets endangering everyone on the road, yet continually cheating death somehow. Life’s not fair.
Even if it was an accident he killed and injured multiple people. No blessings in Madison County bubba.
20=7
"Wow. Seems harsh for an accident that did not involve a DUI. Under this precedent, anyone found to be negligent in a fatal crash could receive a similar sentence. Have never seen this in MS outside the context of DUI."
November 10, 2020 at 5:06 PM
Actually, according to WAPT: "...Oct 18, 2019... FROM THE STATE CRIME LAB... THE RESULTS SHOWED DEVAULT HAD A FORM OF SYNTHETIC CANNABIS IN HIS SYSTEM AT THE TIME OF THE CRASH."
5:06 I suspect if everyone drove with the thought that their actions could put them in jail for 20 years, there would be less accidents. BUT, this wasn’t an accident. It was a COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE incident that would NOT have occurred except due to the perps lack of regard and responsibility to others on the road. Let him rot.
WLBT reported indictment revealed synthetic cannabinoid in his system when crash occurred.
The bikers will try to consume both lanes now.... I’ve got on a silly ass little onesie and a helmet, so me and mine are going to ride zigzag all the way down 463.
To the fruit loop that block the exit ramp on the Trace @ Hwy 43, today, you are one lucky fool.
Of course its more to the story, he was indicted for being being under the influence. Apparently he had something in his system, not alcohol, at the time of the wreck.
Second, that is not a day for day crime. He will do nowhere close to twenty years.
Third, what's going to happen when a person with medical marijuana runs off the road and hits someone because they reached down to change the radio station but they happen to have marijuana in their system.
He was under the influence of a certain substance...the dropped phone story was just that...a story
It’s not an accident if you cause injury or death to someone while playing on your damn phone.
My god that seems like a harsh sentence. Where is the ACLU? If this was a shooting in the street or a domestic abuse that resulted in a death, they would have been given parol and an ice cream cake.
@7:52 - they were motorcycles, not bicycles.
For those that are of the opinion Mr Devault's sentence is harsh, perhaps you should speak to the families of Bobby Lenoir and Jack Harper, or David Potvin and Jeff Rickels, the other riders involved in this incident. Would that make you feel differently? Maybe? Maybe not?
I do empathize with Mr Devault and his family because of, at least, one bad decision he made that day had life-changing consequences. He made a choice. Because of that bad decision, he is now going to prison and no matter what anyone says, prison is no joke. He will serve his time and pay his court ordered debt to society. As a previous poster noted who seems more familiar with sentencing and parole, he will probably serve only a portion of his sentence, become eligible for parole, and walk out of prison.
Alive.
He's young and he'll go home to his family and attempt to move forward with his life, best case scenario.
But, what about the families of Bobby and Jack? Oh, yeah, they get to go to the cemetery. What about David and Jeff? They survived, thank God, but at what cost?
Since the cellphone was indeed the reason, according to Mr Devault's own admission, for swerving into and causing the deaths and injuries of a group of friends out for an afternoon motorcycle ride, then I hope this sets a precedent from this day forward. That he was indicted for having a synthetic in his system at the time of the incident pretty much sealed his fate. It's about time 'distracted driving' offenses received severe penalties, especially where there is loss of life or severe injury. There is no excuse for it. Thank you, Grand Jury, and Judge Emfinger.
Yes, I ride and I love it. Bobby and Jack were 'friends of friends' that I ride with, so it has seemed like it took forever to get to this point. I will continue to ride, but I have developed an almost hyper-aware sixth sense about drivers in vehicles paying more attention to cellphones, tablets, newspapers, makeup, etc, than their driving. You're easy to spot, swerving left and right, speeding up, slowing down, doing the head bob, oblivious to everything around you. I do my best to get as far away from you as I can. If that call or that text or whatever is so important, pull over, for God's sakes. You're really not that important nor is the call/text/post. For those who want to get an attitude about being called out for texting/email/fb while driving, get over it. Don't make it a situation where it becomes life or death.
Choices. Make good ones. Oh, and Watch Out For Motorcycles.
To WMH, Amen and well said. I also ride and it’s not a hobby, it’s my life. For you crybabies and social illiterates out there here’s a heads up... you murder the wrong biker with your vehicle while playing on your phone or exercising your superiority be prepared to answer to hard people.
Speaking of motorcycles, what makes you ass-hats think you need your three-bulb-light-bar clicked on high beam day or night. Everybody sees your ass coming. If you were in a car, you'd be ticketed. For me...I'll approach you with my high beams on in response. What you really need to do is add a flashing beanie propeller to your helmet.
And, yes, I rode a motorcycle for over thirty years but I never felt the need to blind oncoming traffic just to show my ass.
Motorcycles have always required more skill to successfully navigate the roads safely but it seems even more difficult now with so many trying to look at those cell phones. I agree, you have to learn to watch for them and avoid them.
4:26-
If you are sure you’re going to be convicted, it is preferable to delay your trial or plea and sentencing as much as possible, because your pretrial detention will be in a county jail, not Parchman, and you’ll get credit for time served. On a small enough offense, and with enough delay, this will result in spending no time at all in prison, because they generally don’t send you there unless you have more than a year of time left to serve.
Or so I’m told. Perhaps the lawyers in the commentariat can tell us.
I wonder if he had a "medical marijuana ID card" with the same circumstances involved, would the sentence have been the same?
It wasn't an "accident!" It was NEGLIGENT driving.
@1:05 AM - excellent post.
Y’all stop taking up for this POS. He was vaping THC so he deserves more. Should of been life for that sort POS
1:05 I was one of the posters that said this was too harsh. I can count on one hand the amount of times a comment on this board has changed my mind on something but you have just joined the list. Thank you for that. The victims need justice.
Also, the judge took into account that the incident took place in July, 2018, and Davault received another DUI in 2019 - obviously after the incident.
I think the Pretrial motions were successful in pointing out that Mr. Devault could not be shown to have been “under the influence” because there were only trace amounts of thc in his system. So all the rot in jail folks... if he smoked a plant 30-45 days before this accident he should get 20 years? What about the fact the bikers had alcohol in their systems? Contributory negligence?
Don't mention alcohol and motorcycle riders. They're all straight from leaving church celebrations or maybe a 'blessings of the bikes'. Go up to Ratliff one weekend on a sunny day and you'll see fifty to seventy of them chugging beer, prancing and posing, pretending to be 'baaaad ass'. And at least three of them are off duty cops.
I don’t know the other victim, but Bobby Lenoir was a damn good man. If provided with the opportunity, I would slowly, yet gladly, kill Devault.
8:46 PM, the ACLU his no longer a civil liberties organization;
the ACLU is a partisan hack fund raising division of the Democrat Party.
Was a member for decades until the corrupt teamed with the dumbed downs and decided they would forfeit the civl liberties of millions and millions of children, especially young girls, in favor of the 3/10’s of 1% with penises that would get their little feelings hurt if unable to use the girls bathroom.
Afterwards the ACLU really showed how dumbed down and corrupt those running the organization had become by spending more than $1 million on TV ads comparing Brett Kavanaugh to Bill Clinton, and Bill Cosby (no adverts i.e. problems with Clinton back when it mattered though).
And it wasn’t just his/Kavanaugh’s word against hers/Christine Blasey Ford’s (back when we all had to believe whatever the woman said, remember? Before Biden of course), Ford’s best friend at the time, that Ford said was there, did not have a clue what the F she/Christine Blasey Ford was talking about.
Like the Southern Poverty Law Center, The ACLU is now just another fund raising organization that will do and say whatever best gets the contributions rolling in.
ACLU = Anti-Civil Liberties Union
Ok folks, a little insider info - Bubba picked this up, after Guest felt it wasn’t enough to go after - especially after some perjury and harassment by witnesses for the poor souls who were killed that day. Case notes stated that the young man would “man up” and turn himself in if indicated - no, a SWAT team was sent to his place of employment. The THC in his system - that was not found when he was tested at the ER shortly after the accident. It was finally found, trace amounts so small that the company who found it (on the 3rd round of testing) said they wouldn’t risk their reputation by testifying as a witness for the state on the results.
The boy screwed up, but he manned up and then got screwed by the system. Y’all need to stop and think - this could have been any of us (contact high from the Grove, anyone?) or any of our kids. Think before throwing that stone you’re holding.
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