Wrong-way drunk driver punished

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

COEUR d'ALENE — A 36-year-old Spokane business owner who drove the wrong way down the Interstate 90 exit ramp at Northwest Boulevard in Coeur d’Alene, causing a crash that injured another motorist, will serve six months behind bars.

Casey C. Knapton was drunk when he drove his car onto the

interstate and headed west in the eastbound lane before Thanksgiving last year.

But it was Noh Yang who said the injuries he sustained in the resulting crash will stay with him a long time.

Yang, who was driving east when he was struck in the pile-up caused by Knapton’s wrong turn Nov. 21, was hospitalized and has since made do with a steel rod implanted in his left leg to heal fractured bone.

“I have to lean all my weight on my right leg,” Yang, a tire man at Les Schwab Tire Centers, said at Knapton’s sentencing Monday in Coeur d’Alene First District Court. “I never needed help doing truck tires, but now I need extra help.”

The loss of strength in his leg has prevented him from rock climbing and fishing, two passions he pursued before the crash. But there’s a flip side to the pain he has experienced in the past eight months since the incident; he survived, he said, and he has learned the importance of that.

“I get to see my son grow up, and he’s happy about that,” Yang said.

Defense attorney Fred Loats said although his client’s BAC registered .15 — almost twice the legal limit to drive in Idaho — Knapton isn’t a heavy drinker.

In fact, he has not had previous alcohol-related offenses. He is the owner of a Liberty Lake landscaping business, has a college degree and a strong work history.

After the incident, Knapton voluntarily enrolled in alcohol counseling, passed every urine test he was asked to submit and he has apologized extensively to the victims, Loats said.

“Everything Mr. Knapton has done ... proves this is a horrible misfortune and will never happen again,” Loats said.

The defendant, he said, made a wrong turn onto a poorly marked I-90 exit ramp on the south side of the Northwest Boulevard overpass.

Deputy prosecutor David Robins, however, said being drunk behind the wheel gaining speed on the wrong-way ramp made Knapton’s vehicle a deadly trajectory looking for a target.

“He was akin to a Tomahawk cruise missile coming down the wrong way,” Robins said.

Yang became the eventual target, and an innocent victim, he said.

For Judge Lansing Haynes, the words struck a chord.

“This is an extremely alarming case,” the judge said.

Haynes did not think the exit ramp was poorly marked.

“He went the wrong way because he was drunk driving,” he said.

Presentence investigators recommended probation in the case because of Knapton’s low risk to reoffend and his remorse, the judge said before sentencing the defendant to a suspended five-year prison term. But Haynes ordered 180 days in the county jail followed by two years probation, and revoked Knapton’s driving privileges for two years.

“You can’t drive for any reason after you get out of jail,” Haynes said.