Man faces 10 years for repeat DWIs

CLOVIS - Convicted Friday on his 10th impaired driving charge, Randall Pruit now faces up to 10 years in prison.

A Curry County jury returned its verdict after a long day of trial but less than an hour of deliberation, finding Pruit guilty of second-degree felony DWI and two petty misdemeanors in connection with a nighttime crash into his neighbor's car on Dec. 31, 2017.

Ronna Mares testified Friday morning to hearing "a very loud crash" outside her house shortly after midnight last year on the new year's eve. She said she went outside and found her neighbor Pruit "crawling out of the car," a silver Hyundai he'd driven into her white Ford Explorer.

Pruit, 55, would complain of a head injury from the crash, which he testified had nothing to do with any substance impairment but simply poor judgment in trying to negotiate a dying automobile toward his driveway.

"I was just careless," Pruit told the jury, composed of four women and eight men. "There was no excuse on that one."

Mares said she told Pruit she'd called police and an ambulance, and that he then went inside his house on the 2600 block of Clovis' Williams Avenue; authorities were at his door soon after. Prosecutors played lapel footage of that encounter and subsequent field sobriety test efforts multiple times for the jury, arguing that Pruit's behavior had less to do with a concussion or fright than with certain drugs' depressant effects on the central nervous system.

Subsequent blood analysis found traces of cocaine and the anti-anxiety medication Alprazolam, known more commonly as Xanax.

Protiti Sarker from the state Department of Health's Scientific Lab Division testified as an expert witness in the field of forensic toxicology. Sarker said cocaine in particular has a short half life ranging from 30 to 90 minutes.

The fact that even a small amount was detected in Pruit's blood sample taken some three hours after the incident pointed to an inconsistency in his testimony on the matter, Chief Deputy District Attorney Brian Stover argued.

Pruit said he "hadn't had cocaine in several days, at least a couple days" prior to the incident, and had taken one bar of Xanax no fewer than 24 hours earlier.

Defense attorney Michael Garrett argued there wasn't a clearly defined schedule of impairment for drugs in the blood as opposed to alcohol, which was not detected in Pruit's tests. But for Stover, at least, the proof was in the pudding, in the way Pruit hopped a curb, drove through a bush and two mailboxes and finally into his neighbor's car with enough force to total at least his own vehicle.

"The point being this: before you get behind that wheel ... you owe us a duty to be absolutely zero impaired," he said in closing arguments, calling the head injury a "red herring" and a "completely fabricated story."

Pruit remains in custody and will face sentencing in about a month, at which time Stover said he "faces anywhere from 18 months to 10 years in prison depending on the court's finding of priors."

Stover said he will present documentation of Pruit's prior DWI offenses, of which he believes there are nine.

Pruit was acquitted in May of his next most recent charge, which stemmed from Oct. 21, 2017, and was his first since 2009. Stover prosecuted in the May trial as well, and pointed to a failure to search Pruit's blood at the time.

"I am proud that the jury was able to look through the smoke screen to see the truth," he wrote in a message to The News. "Anytime a drunk driver is on the road, they put us all at risk. There is no excuse for a multiple offender."

Garrett declined comment.