NOT GUILTY VERDICT CONCLUDES EMOTIONAL COURT TRIAL

POLSON -- Late Friday afternoon, a district court jury returned a not
guilty verdict for 24-year-old William Maus, who was on trial for
negligent vehicular homicide while under the influence.

The charge stemmed from his involvement in a 2009 car crash on U.S.
Highway 93 near the Ninepipes Lodge that resulted in the death of
Joshua Stubbs, an 18-year-old from Dixon. A blood sample from Maus,
taken several hours after the crash, revealed the presence of
marijuana at levels that could have impaired his driving, law
enforcement officials claimed.

The jury was also tasked with evaluating a secondary charge against
Maus, negligent vehicular homicide. After almost five hours of
deliberations, the jurors were unable to reach a verdict on this
lesser included charge.

Before leaving the courtroom Friday morning, the jury heard closing
statements from defense attorney Mike Sherwood and Deputy County
Attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson.

In his statement, Sherwood admitted that Maus made an extremely
costly mistake, but asked the jury to remember that his client was on
trial for a crime that, by definition, involves "considerably greater
than a lack of ordinary care."

"He wasn't speeding through a school zone at 90 miles per hour,"
Sherwood said. "This is not a case in which Willie was so grossly
negligent that you, as jurors, should find him to have committed
either offense."

Sherwood suggested to the jury that they had received a "tailored"
version of the truth from Cole-Hodgkinson.

According to Sherwood, the prosecution selected to interview only
those witnesses who would provide testimony supporting the
prosecution's case; they failed to interview several witnesses at the
scene of the crime and six health professionals who treated Maus
following the accident and reported no signs of drug-induced impairment.

He encouraged the jury to instead examine the facts in their entirety.

"The truth that Willie told you had warts -- but it was the whole
truth," Sherwood said about his client's testimony.

In response, Cole-Hodgkinson rebutted Sherwood's suggestion that the
prosecution had presented a biased picture of events.

"A tailored truth is not untruth," Cole-Hodgkinson said. "Would you
want everyone with an opinion or everyone who saw even part of the
events to be on the stand?"

She asked the jury to weigh the costs and benefits of Maus's actions.

"In this case, the defendant made a choice. In making that choice, he
took options away from Joshua Stubbs and Clinton Shor," she said,
referring to the victim and the driver of a logging truck, also
involved in the accident. "Clinton Shor will feel guilt the rest of
his life. Joshua Stubbs doesn't have a 'rest of his life.'"

In addition to the closing arguments, the jury had the opportunity to
hear the testimony of multiple witnesses, including testimony from
the defendant himself, Thursday afternoon.

From the witness stand, Maus described how he momentarily took his
eyes of the road to move a pen from behind his ear to the passenger
seat. According to Maus, when he looked back up, Stubbs' red Explorer
was decelerating rapidly, and he was unable to avoid hitting it.

"The red SUV lifted in front of my windshield, and as I slowed down,
he came down," Maus recalled during his testimony. "He whipped into
the other lane where the logging truck t-boned, or broad-sided him,
pushing him out of my line of vision."

Toward the end of his client's time on the stand, Sherwood asked him
why he had never contacted the victim's family. Maus replied that he
wanted to, and in fact had thought about it many times, but was
instructed by legal counsel not to do so. Sherwood then allowed Maus,
for the first time, to address the Stubbs family seated directly in
front of him.

"I'm really, really sorry," Maus said, in tears. "If I could replace
myself with him, I would do it instantaneously. I wish it would've
never happened -- no one should ever have to lose a son."

During cross-examination, Cole-Hodgkinson honed in on the issue of
impairment and asked Maus several questions about the timeline he had
provided for the day of the accident.

She called into question his assertions that he had only taken one
short hit of marijuana on the day of the accident, and that he used
marijuana solely for medicinal purposes, namely for the pain of an ACL injury.

At no point prior to the accident did Maus attempt to obtain a
medical marijuana license, Cole-Hodgkinson said. In fact, records
that she obtained from Maus's doctor showed that at a January
appointment Maus described his knee as feeling "great."

Following the verdict Friday afternoon, Maus, who is slated to
graduate from the University of Montana later this spring, quietly
celebrated with the approximately 15 family members and friends who
had gathered to support him.

Members of Joshua Stubbs' family, and some of the trial's key
witnesses who had sat with the family throughout the proceedings,
appeared visibly upset before leaving the courtroom.

Cole-Hodgkinson said that she has not yet decided whether she will
pursue a new trial for the lesser included charge.