Robert Running Jr.
Robert Running Jr. is handcuffed after being sentenced to a year in prison for delivering a punch that led to a 39-year-old's death at a gas station earlier this year.
(John Harper, cleveland.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Maple Heights man was sentenced to a year in prison Thursday for a "freak accident" in which he punched a man, causing him to fall and sever a critical brain artery.
Robert Running, Jr., 40, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, assault and falsification earlier this month after a single punch led to 39-year-old Shaunte Miller's death.
The Feb. 13 encounter between the two men at the Sunoco gas station on Turney Road was brief. According to Running, Miller came up to him and refused to leave him alone while he was talking to his mother.
Miller stepped back at one point, a move that Running said frightened him. Running hit him, then watched as he fell backwards, turning face first into the window of his car. Miller stood up for a few moments before collapsing to his knees.
"I tried to put him back in his car, so that he would wake up there," Running told Common Pleas Judge Robert McClelland at Thursday's sentencing hearing. "That's when my dad said, 'Bob, I don't think he's breathing.'"
Running's mother called 911, thinking Miller suffered a drug overdose. Meanwhile, Running tired to perform CPR. When police arrived, however, Running failed to mention the shove that sent Miller to the ground.
Surveillance cameras at the station captured the entire encounter, however, and Running was arrested in May.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner determined that Miller died when his Basalar artery, a major blood vessel that connects the heart to the brain stem, tore open as Miller's head snapped back during his fall. It's the same type of whiplash injury that sometimes kills car crash victims.
Miller, who had a blood-alcohol content around .30 percent when he drove to the gas station that night -- nearly four times the legal driving limit -- died within seconds of hitting the ground.
While a blood-alcohol content in that range can cause alcohol poisoning, the examiner determined that intoxication was not a direct cause of Miller death.
Defense attorney John Powers argued that Miller's level of intoxication contributed to his death. Powers said that if Miller had been sober, or more sober he might not have experienced whiplash that severed the artery.
"A sober person steadies their neck so it doesn't whip back like that," Powers said. "His head went back and essentially stretched the artery until it ruptured. Mr. Running had no was of anticipating that type of injury."
Running buried his face in his hands as Miller's family made tearful statements to the judge.
"He was my high school sweetheart," Miller's wife, Melanie, said. "I was with him since I was 16 years old. He was going to the gas station he goes to every night, trying to get me a snack."
She described taking her children to the hospital, where family members shook their heads silently when she asked if she could see him.
Miller left behind three daughters.
Miller's brother, William Miller, described having to walk his niece to school on walk your daughter to school day.
"When my brother died, a piece of me went with him, I'll never get it back," William Miller said. "Just trying to live through his memories will never be enough."
McClelland called the case a "freak incident," before imposing the prison sentence.
"I don't think anybody could expect he would pass away," McClelland said. "There's no amount of time that could make that kind of pain go away."
Running, who has no children and worked as a server at Oak Barrel restaurant, faced a maximum of three years in prison. He was perviously convicted of driving under the influence in 2008 and a breaking and entering in 1999.
Running is eligible for early release at the discretion of the judge, and will serve three years probation after he's released from prison.