What happened on the appeal of pickup driver who killed Moore High School runners in 2020?

The driver of a pickup that struck Moore High School students in 2020 will remain in prison after a mixed decision on his appeal.

Max Leroy Townsend, 61, of Tuttle, is serving three consecutive life sentences.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Thursday upheld his three convictions for second-degree murder and his life terms.

The court, however, threw out six of his seven convictions for leaving the scene of an accident.

Three students were killed when his pickup — a red Ford F-250 — went up on a sidewalk and hit them from behind at 77 mph on Feb. 3, 2020. Four other students were injured, three from the impact of the pickup. Townsend claimed he was unconscious.

The judges voted unanimously to uphold the murder convictions and life terms. They rejected complaints of prosecutorial misconduct, judicial bias and prejudicial defense mistakes.

However, the judges voted 4-1 to uphold only one conviction for leaving the scene of an accident. They threw out the other convictions because of double jeopardy protections found in state law. He cannot be tried again.

"We find a defendant can only be convicted of leaving the scene once," Judge Robert Hudson wrote for the majority. "The crime focuses on the defendant's action in leaving the scene, which may be done only once, not the harm done to any individual victim."

Disagreeing was Presiding Judge Scott Rowland.

"This case has seven victims, and under today's result, Townsend receives no punishment for the horrific injuries he visited upon four of the seven," Rowland wrote.

He described Townsend's actions as callous and much closer to those of a drive-by shooter than to those in "a run-of-the mill traffic accident with another vehicle."

Jurors in 2021 found Townsend guilty of second-degree murder when they agreed he was driving in an imminently dangerous manner in extreme disregard to human life. Tests on his blood found evidence of marijuana and alcohol use.

Killed were senior Rachel Freeman, 17, sophomore Yuridia Martinez, 16, and senior Kolby Crum, 18.

Jurors also found him guilty of three counts of leaving the scene of a fatality accident and four counts of leaving the scene of an accident involving injury.

The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction on the first count of leaving the scene of a fatality accident.

Time served will not be changing

The reversals of the other convictions will not change his prison time. His trial judge had allowed him to serve his punishments for those counts at the same time as his life terms.

Townsend did not testify in his trial in Cleveland County District Court. In a jail call, he blamed what happened on the devil.

In a written statement for his sentencing, he maintained again that the accident was a result of drinking Red Bull after he started coughing.

"It went down the wrong way," he wrote. "That's when I really started coughing and choking and spitting. … I could not catch my breath and that's when I went unconscious."

The students had just started a cool-down run along Main Street after track and cross country practice at the school.

Townsend, a construction worker, was driving from Muskogee to meet with family to plan his son's funeral. His son had died the day before in Moore in a car wreck.

He was on his way to his son's house to feed a dog at the time of the collision. His son had lived a few blocks from the school.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Pickup driver from Moore High School tragedy loses key part of appeal