Persistent offender gets 25 years in prison

Few Montanans spend considerable time behind bars for driving while under the influence, but Ronald Allan Hummel is an exception.

According to court documents, Hummel was found guilty of felony DUI on Oct. 1, 2019, and was recently sentenced in Flathead District Court to 25 years in the Montana State Prison by District Court Judge Robert B. Allison. He received credit for 228 days served in the county jail. Hummel was also designated a persistent felony offender.

Hummel’s criminal record set the stage for what could end up being a life sentence for the 65-year-old man.

Charges and convictions, which include rape, burglary, several misdemeanors and numerous DUIs, sealed Hummel’s fate.

In April 1980, Hummel, then 25 and a Whitefish resident, received an eight-year sentence for escaping the Flathead County Jail while facing a charge of aggravated assault.

Hummel’s latest run-in with the law occurred April 7, 2019, when a Columbia Falls Police officer spoke with him after someone called about an intoxicated motorcyclist. The officer smelled alcohol on Hummel, said his speech was slurred and that he appeared confused when the officer asked him questions.

When the officer asked Hummel to take a field sobriety test, he allegedly refused. He also refused to give a blood sample, according to court documents.

When the officer checked Hummel’s record, it revealed six prior convictions for DUI, dating between Feb. 11, 1985, and Oct. 10, 2008.

Hummel’s criminal past includes many other offenses, including several from when he lived in Gallatin County.

According to a March 29, 2000, story in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Hummel, then a resident of Belgrade, was sentenced to 13 months in prison for a felony drunk driving conviction. The incident occurred Nov. 29, 1999.

Hummel had 30 misdemeanors and numerous stints in prison at the time, the Chronicle story noted. One of those crimes included a conviction for following a Missoula woman home from a bar and raping her at knife point in 1985.

At the time, Hummel asked District Judge Mike Salvagni for a chance at leading a productive life.

Telling the judge he is an alcoholic needing treatment, Hummel said then, “I’m getting to the point where I’m getting older. I have a son who now wants contact with me.

“I’ve been to the Montana State Prison. I’m being honest when I say I’m tired,” Hummel said.

Salvagni said he could not risk releasing the chronic lawbreaker.

“This defendant poses an extreme risk and danger to the public,” the judge said.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle story further detailed Hummel’s criminal past.

It detailed his move to Belgrade after being released on parole from prison. He got a job as a janitor at Montana State University in late 1997.

He was convicted of drunken driving in 1998, but that paled in comparison to the rape and burglary accusations in October of that year. Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert accused him in court documents of prying open the door to his ex-girlfriend’s room at the Friendly Motel with a tire iron and raping her.

The arrest brought a strong response from Montana State University officials because Hummel had a master key to one of the university’s largest co-ed dormitories through his janitor’s job. University officials vowed at the time to look into criminal background checks in hiring, as they didn’t know about Hummel’s past rape conviction.

In February 1999, Hummel pleaded guilty to burglary in exchange for the rape charge being dropped.

But in July 1999, District Judge Thomas Olson admitted he erred in not asking Hummel if he was under the influence of drugs at the time he pleaded guilty to burglary. Hummel said he was dazed by a cocktail of prescription drugs at the time, so Olson allowed him to withdraw the plea.

Lambert then planned on taking the rape and burglary charges to a jury. However, he learned a week before the trial that Sheriff’s Capt. Rob Christie returned a key piece of evidence to the Friendly Motel — the door frame Hummel allegedly bent with the tire iron to get in the woman’s motel room.

Lambert dropped the case, and Hummel became a free man again on Sept. 24, 1999.

Scott Shindledecker may be reached at 758-4441 or sshindledecker@dailyinterlake.com.