DWI Fatality Nets Man, 25, A 20-Year Term, $15,000 Fine

A 25-year-old Jacksonville man received the maximum sentence on Friday for killing a college student in a September 2010 drunken-driving collision in Little Rock.

The seven men and five women of the jury deliberated about 37 minutes to recommend the penalty for Jeremy Alan Farr - 20 years in prison and a $15,000 fine - to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson.

Farr pleaded guilty in November to felony negligent homicide and two misdemeanor counts of failure to stop after an accident. He’ll have to serve at least 3 1/3 years before he will be eligible for parole.

Farr killed 22-year-old Ivory Warmack in a middleof-the-night collision on East Eighth Street near the Main Street intersection while driving on the wrong side of the road. Farr had already hit two other vehicles, whose drivers were following Farr’s pickup to get his license plate number, according to testimony.

Warmack was a passenger in a 1998 Toyota Camry driven by Cori McReynold, 23.

An arrest report showed Farr’s blood-alcohol level at 0.10, higher than the 0.08 maximum at which drivers are presumed intoxicated by law.

Jurors also heard testimony from the drivers of the two other cars that Farr struck. Both Jeannie Farmer and Jazmine Lewis described how they followed Farr’s truck, which didn’t stop untilit hit the Warmack car.

Farr tried to drive away, both testified, but Lewis blocked his pickup.

Farr got out of his truck, apologizing, Farmer said.

“He was saying he was sorry, but it was too late for that,” she testified. “[Warmack] was dead.”

Deputy prosecutor Kenneth Burleson showed jurors that Farr had been arrested in Jacksonville for speeding and marijuana possession about five months before the collision.

Ten months after the crash that killed Warmack, Farr was arrested on a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge in Cabot when he was found asleep behind the wheel of a running car in a bank parking lot, according to testimony.

He was scheduled for trial last week, but he did not show up, according to testimony. He was also on probation for a 2008 second-degree battery charge involving his 9-month-old daughter and has a 2009 driving-whileintoxicated conviction from Sherwood.

Warmack was a Philander Smith College senior five days past his 22nd birthday and a year from graduating, the first one in his father’s family to attend college, his parents, Dwayne and Sandra Warmack, told jurors. A basketball aficionado, Ivory Warmack was planning to bea teacher because he loved children, they said.

Defense attorney Jimmy Morris said his client is repentant and has changed his life. He asked jurors to remember that the collision was an accident and that his client has turned his life around in the interim.

“Can we give him enough of a punishment to make him a productive citizen?” Morris said.

Farr’s family members testified that he was a loving father and good provider for his children who somehow lost his way in life but was back on the right path.

Farr said he didn’t remember the fatal wreck - “the worst mistake I ever made in my life” - but regularlysaw his victim’s face in his dreams.

He repeatedly apologized to the dead man’s family and said he’s been drug- and alcohol-free for the past 18 months.

“I hate myself for it,” he said. “I know my apology means nothing because you lost somebody. I wish I could take his place.”

Burleson told jurors not to think of the collisions as an accident.

“Ivory Warmack had his life and Jeremy Farr took it from him,” the prosecutor said. “It was not an accident that Jeremy Farr was drinking and driving that night. How soon do you want Jeremy Farr driving on the streets of Pulaski County ?”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/26/2013

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