Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
A Linn County Circuit Court judge found Ernie Zane Allen, 46, guilty of first-degree manslaughter in the death of a teenager last summer.
Judge John A. McCormick delivered his verdict in the case on March 1, finding Allen guilty of the manslaughter charge, driving under the influence of intoxicants and driving while suspended.
On Aug. 8, Allen was driving the car in the crash that killed 17-year-old John “Nick” Larsen. Allen had been driving toward Sweet Home on Highway 228 when his vehicle hit the right shoulder then veered across the highway colliding with a utility pole in the passenger’s door.
Larsen was crushed between Allen and the crushed passenger door and intruding pole. He died from a skull fracture.
“That was the verdict we wanted,” Larsen’s mother, Patty Calvery, said.
Calvery, friends and family of Larsen and Larsen’s girlfriend, Courtney Allen, attended the trial, held Feb. 27 through March 1.
Allen is scheduled for a sentencing hearing at 2 p.m. on March 24. The court date will include a pre-trial hearing on a DUII charge from June 2005.
McCormick said Allen was obviously guilty of driving while suspended, and tests at the state crime lab provided evidence that Allen was not only under the influence of alchol while driving but also methamphetamine.
The judge also found Allen guilty of driving under the influence of both alcohol and controlled substances.
McCormick cited several cases in his explanation of his verdict on manslaughter.
The defense had been seeking a lesser charge, claiming Allen’s responsibility in the death of Larsen was lower than the state alleged. The defense also claimed that Larsen had grabbed the steering wheel.
The state had to prove that Allen was driving while aware of or having the opportunity to understand the dangers of driving under the influence of intoxicants with an “extreme disregard for the value of human life,” McCormick said. Case law made “it plain that the state has to prove causation.”
In some cases, “it was not the circumstances that have to go prove the extreme indifference toward the value of human life,” McCormick said. “It was the conduct.”
The state must show circumstances that demonstrate “arrogant recklessness” in the “defendant’s frame of mind, attitude,” McCormick said.
Prosecutor Ani Yardumian argued that Allen was well aware of the dangers of driving under the influence, raising the level of responsibility.
She outlined Allen’s history of drunken driving convictions and described a wreck in 2003 where Allen had driven drunk.
Witnesses told the court that Allen was under the influence before he drove that night, and one told the court that she told him not to drive or at least to wear his seatbelt, even offering him a ride just minutes before the fatal crash.