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Huff to spend at least 25 years behind bars
BEAVER CITY, Nebraska -- This is a man that a prosecuting attorney described as "a con artist" ... the man whose ex-wife called "a professional liar."
A substance abuse counselor said this man displays "a macho sense of superiority."
This is the man who drove drunk and struck and killed a young Arapahoe wife and mother 21⁄2 years ago. This is the same man who will spend at least the next 25 years of his life behind state penitentiary bars for killing Kasey Jo Warner on Oct. 3, 2007.
Furnas County Judge James Doyle IV told a sniffling 36-year-old Herchel H. Huff Sr., standing before him for sentencing Wednesday morning in the courtroom in Beaver City, Nebraska, "You're responsible for the death of an extraordinary person."
Huff told Judge Doyle, "I want to say I'm sorry to the families -- theirs and mine. I'm sorry about the loss of Kasey Jo Warner." He mumbled through tears, stopping to wipe them and then blow his nose.
Judge Doyle sentenced Huff, of Holbrook, to 45 years on Count 1, motor vehicle homicide/driving while intoxicated; and five years on Count 2, refusal to submit to a chemical test; to run consecutively, for a maximum of 50 years. Huff was sentenced to 20 years on Count 3, manslaughter, to run concurrently with Counts 1 and 2; and 20-60 months for tampering with a witness, to run consecutively to Counts 1 and 2.
The absolute maximum that Huff could serve in prison is 55 years, however Judge Doyle gave Huff credit for 468 days already served in jail, (but not for approximately 130 days Huff spent in substance abuse treatment) leaving a maximum sentence of about 531⁄2 years. With time taken off his sentence for good behavior, Huff could be out of prison in about half that time.
At Huff's release, the state will revoke his driver's license for 15 years.
Doyle declared Huff indigent and waived court costs.
Huff was remanded to the custody of the Furnas County Sheriff, whose officers delivered him to the state pen in Lincoln yet Wednesday.
Huff delivered a parting wave -- what's called "a jailhouse wave" -- to members of the media waiting to photograph and film him as he left the district court clerk's office with an escort of deputies Lee Lozo, Ryan Davis and Tim Hanson and Sheriff Kurt Kapperman.
On March 12, 2010, a jury found Huff guilty of motor vehicle homicide in the death of Kasey Jo Warner, who was jogging with her 3-year-old daughter Gentry on a kid-sized four-wheeler, on Oct. 3, 2007, when Huff struck Kasey Warner and killed her. Huff badgered his passenger, Ryan Markwartt, about saying that he, Markwartt, was driving, and then Huff refused to submit to a blood alcohol content test at Cambridge Memorial Hospital.
Judge Doyle found Huff guilty of tampering with a witness and refusal to submit to a chemical test.
Huff had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge in Dec. 1, 2008.
Doyle's sentence is very close to the maximum he could have imposed. Motor vehicle homicide is a Class II felony with a penalty of up to 50 years in prison. Tampering with a witness is a Class IV felony with a penalty of up to five years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both. Refusing to submit to a chemical test is a Class IIIA felony with a penalty of up to five years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.
Mike Guinan, lead prosecutor, asked Judge Doyle to impose the maximum sentence, considering two previous convictions for driving while intoxicated and his repeated patterns of getting into and causing trouble even while out on bond. Guinan recalled an incident in North Platte when Huff was out on bond on another charge and he got drunk and into a bar fight and fled the scene. At the hospital, Huff was uncooperative with doctors and nurses, and flipped off the officer and refused to submit to a chemical test. Police found three knives in his car and brass knuckles hidden in his clothes.
At the same time, Huff became "a regular" at a bar in Oxford, according to testimony from a waitress during Huff's trial.
After a failed attempt at treatment, Guinan said, Huff has his kids for a visit, and his daughter calls her mother to report that her dad's drunk and driving fast and "being mean." Emily Huff drives from Paxton to Kearney to retrieve her kids. The Kearney police and Emily find the three at a motel; Herchel Huff's drunk and unresponsive. Emily leaves with the kids.
While out on bond again, Huff defrauds a Norfolk man of about $5,000 after agreeing to do a paving job and not completing it. When the homeowner complains about Huff's kids on the work site, Huff locks them in his car. "He's drinking whiskey by 10 a.m., and chasing it with beer and Valium, and it's 100 degrees outside," Guinan said.
A year after killing Kasey Jo Warner, Huff's out on bond again and flees from Game and Parks Officer Matt Andrews in Frontier County, driving at high speeds on gravel roads, blowing through stop signs. When Andrews stops Huff in Stockville, he discovers that Huff has his two kids in the car.
"It's a commentary on Huff -- he doesn't care. He carries on the same as before," Guinan said. "It's deja vu, he continually does the same things."
"On Oct. 3, 2007, while he's out on a Lincoln County bond, he kills Kasey Jo Warner," Guinan said.
Guinan said that Huff has shown no remorse for killing Kasey Jo Warner, and even while incarcerated, blames Kasey Jo for the accident that took her life. An inmate was prepared to testify, Guinan said, that Huff told him, "If it wasn't for that ----- walking down the road, I wouldn't be here."
Guinan told Judge Doyle that although Huff alleges concern for Dan Warner and his family in a letter to the judge, "He's a con. He lied to you, Judge. He lied on the witness stand, about trying to get help, about taking care of Gentry. (He lied) about being scared of needles -- he has two tattoos himself."
Guinan continues, "In his letter to you, Judge Doyle, he says his thoughts go out to the (Warner) girls, but he left that child to walk down the road by herself."
In her letter to Judge Doyle, Emily Huff, Herchel Huff's ex-wife, recounts a time in Goodland, Kan., when Huff talks his passenger into saying he was driving when Huff had been driving drunk and was stopped by law enforcement. She does not describe "a family man," as another character reference did. "He was controlling," never allowing her to see family or friends, Emily wrote, subjecting her to extreme mental and physical abuse. "He was a gypsy, a con artist, a professional liar," Emily wrote.
Emily wrote, "I didn't know Kasey Jo Warner, but she saved me and my children that day. I know he would have beaten or killed me in front of my kids. That part of my life is over, thanks to the courage of Kasey Jo Warner."
Guinan said, "This is not a family man. What he was teaching his kids was to drink, and drive drunk, and flee from law enforcement. He was teaching them that when I'm drunk and driving, it's all about me -- the world be damned."
A substance abuse counselor, whose facility kicked Herchel Huff out for fighting with and threatening another resident, wrote that Huff has a significant negative attitude, is deeply co-dependent and has a "macho sense of superiority."
Guinan told the judge that Huff is egocentric -- "It's all about me" -- and doesn't appear to care for his children, and certainly not for anyone he doesn't know.
In a letter to the judge, Guinan said, a person offering a character reference for Huff indicates that he (Huff) would never intentionally hurt anyone. However, Guinan said, that Huff, on the day he killed Kasey Jo Warner, "intentionally" drank, bought drinks, got behind the wheel, drove country roads to avoid sheriff's officers, drove 70-80 miles an hour, ignored everyone's safety. "In the last 20 seconds, yes, he 'unintentionally' caused Kasey Jo Warner's death, yet the six hours before that are filled with intentional acts," Guinan said.
"Kasey Jo Warner's death was unintentional," Guinan said. "But it was foreseeable. He's not sorry. He blames Kasey Jo Warner." He continued, "Huff's an aggressive, violent drunk who gets behind the wheel. This (accident) was going to happen. It was in his future."
Guinan said he fears that even when Huff gets out of prison, he'll drive drunk again. "Maybe kill himself ... his own kids ... a busload of kids," he said. "His blaming (of) Kasey Jo Warner is the most toxic cocktail of this whole thing. Oh, yeah, he'll do it again."
Guinan didn't blame judges or law enforcement for Huff's misbehavior while out on bond. "The judges and the law enforcement officers have done their jobs." Guinan accepted the blame -- the prosecution is where there's a break-down in the line, he said. Guinan said, "A prosecutor should have taken him to task," he said.
Guinan told Judge Doyle, "You have absolute, complete control to take Huff off the street. It's up to you. We ask you to take him off the street. Protect the people of Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas."
"There is no glass ceiling," Guinan said. "We're asking for the maximum on motor vehicle homicide."
Furnas County Attorney Tom Patterson said there will be no sentence that can fill the voice caused by the death of Kasey Jo Warner. "We can ask for a long sentence so that this tragedy does not fall upon another family," Patterson said.
Patterson said his request is not based on bitterness or vengeance. "It's based on justice," he said. "It's not just that two little girls tell each other to 'Swing higher' so that they can 'reach Mommy in heaven'."
"It's not just that two little girls have to be told, 'You have one mommy in heaven and one on earth.'"
"It's not just that parents have to bury a child."
Patterson concluded, "The sentence we seek is just. We ask for the maximum."
Patterson said that the inscription on Kasey Jo Warner's monument in the cemetery is based on Proverbs 31:10-31, the attributes of a noble woman. "Kasey Jo Warner's life, and death, embody nobility," Patterson said.
"The people are crying over the loss of Kasey Jo, and for justice," Patterson said.
Huff's attorney, Richard Calkins, disagreed with Guinan's characterization of Huff. There were two, not three assault convictions. One was dismissed, Calkins said.
Calkins disagreed with Guinan's contention that Huff has shown remorse only recently. Calkins said that he and fellow attorney Charles Brewster told Huff long ago that there would be a time that he could write a letter to the family, that he could say he was sorry.. "His attorneys told him no earlier. He was only taking the advise of counsel not to write a letter earlier," Calkins said.
What appeared as a callous "thumbs up" motion to reporters in the hallway of the Dawson County courthouse in December 2008 was actually a "thumbs up" to reassure family members who were standing behind reporters and photographers, Calkins said.
Calkins said that inmates "are willing to say anything against Huff. And you're not going to get good comments from an ex-wife. Emily Huff is more than willing to say negative things."
But, Calkins said, comments that Huff let Gentry Warner walk down the road by herself bother him the most. "He knows that he stayed (at the accident scene), that he tried to take care of Gentry. That he removed stickers. That he did not let Gentry Warner walk down the road by herself."
Calkins said that all admit "Kasey Jo Warner was well-loved. Yet we also have Mr. Huff's family, and people who wrote to the court in support of Mr. Huff."
Calkins said he knows there is "no chance of probation, so the question becomes how long" Huff will be incarcerated. "We're not going to suggest a number. It's ultimately the court's decision. Please consider that this was an unintentional act. What Mr. Huff was convicted of was unintentional."
Calkins continued, "The state has spent considerable time characterizing Huff as not caring. Yet, he wanted to apologize, to say he was sorry. And he wanted to testify about his feelings. There has been remorse throughout these proceedings. In his letter to the court, he writes that he let himself down, that he let his family down, that he let the court down."
Calkins said that Huff is a family man. "He knows he let his children down. It's a misrepresentation that he doesn't care."
Calkins said that pleading guilty to manslaughter was an acceptance of responsibility.
Calkins asked that what sentences are imposed run concurrently, and asked that Huff be given credit for 468 days of time already served in jail.
Calkins concluded, "This is an unfortunate event in which lots of people have been hurt."
Judge Doyle offered Huff an opportunity to speak to the court.
Huff said, "I want to thank you for letting me talk. I want to say I'm sorry to the families -- theirs and mine. I accept responsibility. I'm sorry about the loss of Kasey Jo Warner."
He mumbled, also too softly to hear, "I didn't let that little girl walk down the road."
Judge Doyle told Huff, "You're responsible for the death of a very extraordinary person."
He continued, "You are not a fit candidate for probation," for probation would lessen the seriousness of the crime.
Huff's head dropped when Doyle pronounced his sentence. His family and the family of Kasey Jo Warner, everyone in the standing-room-only courtroom, were silent.
Patterson said, following the sentencing, that Huff would be transported to the state penitentiary in Lincoln today (Wednesday).
He said that he hopes Huff avails himself of substance abuse programs available at the prison.
Shawn Pruitt, who was farming in a nearby field when Kasey Jo Warner was struck and killed 2 1/2 years ago, said he stands by the testimony he offered in court.
"I don't care that I get credit for taking care of Gentry, but I don't want him (Huff) to get the credit," Pruitt said, reiterating that he called 911 from the Warner home -- without knowing yet who was involved in the accident -- and stopped on the road to pick up little Gentry Warner. She was halfway home.