Man gets 5 years for 7th DUI

A man was sentenced to the Montana Department of Corrections for five years on Thursday, for his seventh drinking and driving offense.

The attorney for Jeremy Hall, 31, said that he had served time on house arrest for the past year, with no further incidents involving alcohol. Hall recently became a father, and that changed his outlook on life, attorney Scott Hilderman said.

“I think he has realized what he needs to do to turn his life around,” Hilderman said.

Hall, 30, was convicted after a Kalispell Police officer was dispatched to an area near Cattleman’s Bar just before 1 a.m. on Jan. 20, 2016.

According to court documents, the officer was investigating a suspicious person call about a man with a shotgun. The officer located three men who were standing near a pickup truck that was stuck on a large rock near a snow berm. The officer found that no offense had occurred with the gun, but Hall allegedly had been driving the truck.

The officer noticed that Hall appeared to be drunk. Hall claimed his girlfriend had been driving the truck, but she denied it, and several witnesses backed up her story.

His blood alcohol concentration was .233, court documents state. The legal limit is .08.

Hall has six prior DUI convictions from May 2004, May 2006, May 2007, May 2009, June 2009 and January 2010.

Court records show that Hall completed a four-year commitment with the Department of Corrections for the 2010 conviction in 2015.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.