By Joe Gerrety
jgerrety@journalandcourier.com

A Lafayette man who had marijuana in his system when he caused a fatal vehicle crash last summer has entered a plea agreement.

Courtney T. Hall, 33, will face a maximum of eight years in prison when he is sentenced March 2 in Tippecanoe Superior Court 1 on his guilty plea to driving with a controlled substance in the body causing death, a Class C felony.

Hall was driving a car west on Lilly Road on Aug. 16 when he turned left into the path of an eastbound motorcycle. The motorcycle driver, Robert P. Liphard, 62, of Lafayette, died from injuries he suffered in the crash.

Chemical tests later revealed Hall had marijuana in his system at the time of the wreck.

Tippecanoe County sheriff's deputy Andy Cree said at the scene that he smelled alcoholic beverages coming from Hall, which resulted in an investigation by the Lafayette Metro Fatal Alcohol Crash Team.

According to court documents, Hall said he did not drink that day but did consume two alcoholic beverages about 9 p.m. the previous night. Hall's blood-alcohol content after the wreck was 0.018 percent, well below Indiana's legal limit of 0.08 percent.

It is against the law to drive in Indiana with even the presence of illegal drugs in a person's system.In exchange for his plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to revoke Hall's probation in a previous case. At the time of the crash, Hall was on house arrest for a September 2004 bank robbery.

If his probation had been revoked in that case, he could have faced 2 1/2 years in prison.

His plea agreement in the fatal crash case requires him to pay restitution for financial losses for the victim and to testify for prosecutors in other cases if asked.

Relatives of Liphard are free to make sentencing recommendations.