Driver Gets Prison For Traffic Death Hacklander Vows To Quit Drinking Before Starting Sentence For Vehicular Manslaughter
With head bowed, Ralph Hacklander faced a packed courtroom Thursday, choked out an apology and vowed never to drink again.
The 53-year-old then was escorted out in handcuffs to begin serving six to 12 years in prison for vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving.
Last October, Hacklander smashed his unloaded logging truck into Terry Davenport’s pickup on U.S. Highway 2. The crash killed the 59-year-old Oldtown, Idaho, man and maimed a Priest River woman who was driving another car.
“Mr. Hacklander has a good work record but his record also shows one other prominent thing. He is an alcoholic and has been a chronic alcoholic for a very long time,” said 1st District Court Judge James Michaud as he handed out the sentence.
Before the October fatality, Hacklander had been convicted of drunken driving three times. He had failed to show up for alcohol treatment and even was fired from his trucking job for one of the DUI convictions. Yet Hacklander remained on the road and making a living driving a commercial vehicle.
That angered members of Terry Davenport’s family. They filled Hacklander’s file with more than 90 letters from concerned citizens who wanted him in prison and off the roads.
“Twenty-nine weeks ago I met my dad on the road and waved to him. Minutes later, he was dead,” Terry Davenport’s daughter Patty Waterman told the court. “It’s time he (Hacklander) pay for the choices he’s made. My dad paid … with his life.”
“My life was forever changed that day,” added Carol Davenport, who celebrated her 37th wedding anniversary with Terry Davenport days before he was killed. “I never got a chance to say goodbye or tell Terry that I loved him.”
About 50 people were in the courtroom Thursday for the sentencing. Hacklander, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a checked shirt, turned to them and said he was sorry for the grief he caused and the embarrassment to his own family.
“My intention is not to ever touch another drop of alcohol,” he said, then sat silent as the sentence was handed down.
“I would like to have seen him get a few more years,” Ross Davenport, Terry’s brother, said afterwards. “But this is a big load off of our shoulders. It’s been a very trying time.”
Bonner County Prosecutor Tevis Hull argued for a sentence of eight to 15 years for Hacklander, whose blood alcohol level was .37 after the accident, more than three times the legal limit. Hacklander’s defense attorney sought a sentence of one to four years.
Hull showed about 12 minutes of an Idaho State Police video taken at the accident scene, which included an officer’s interview with Hacklander.
Hacklander was slurring his words, couldn’t say the alphabet and had to hold onto an officer to keep his balance while standing.
“The video shows he (Hacklander) could not even maintain his balance let alone get behind the wheel of a log truck,” Hull said. “There was nothing unintentional about the act of the defendant. It was a homicide. It was a manslaughter.”