After serving just over three years of a five-year sentence for driving drunk and killing a Henniker man, Jeremiah Johnson will leave prison and complete the remainder of his punishment under home confinement, a judge decided yesterday.

Johnson, of Portsmouth, pleaded guilty in May 2006 to one charge each of negligent homicide and aggravated driving while intoxicated. Two years earlier, Johnson - then 27 - drove drunk from a bar, crossed the center line of Route 114 in Henniker and collided head-on with another vehicle. The car's passenger, 29-year-old Mike Guptill, a mechanic at Contoocook Artesian Wells, was seriously injured and died a week later.

It was an emotional day at Merrimack County Superior Court as Judge Kenneth Brown heard statements from Johnson, his friends and his case manager at the New Hampshire State Prison. Guptill's mother and brother also addressed the court and pleaded that their son's killer be required to serve out his minimum sentence behind bars.

Johnson took several breaks to stifle his sobs while addressing the Guptill family. It would be impossible to fix all the problems he'd caused, Johnson told them, but he was committed to trying.

"We are free to choose our actions, but we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions," Johnson said. "I'm sorry for what I've done to you, I'm sorry for what I've taken from you, and I'm sorry for what I've put you through."

Johnson's attorney, Mark Sisti, described his client as a model prisoner whom correction department officials believed to be a "great candidate" for the home confinement program. Not only has Johnson been a good influence on his peers, Sisti said, he's traveled to 28 schools and given presentations about the consequences of drunken driving - something he plans to continue beyond his sentence, he said.

Johnson, he went on, could be that "one-in-100 person that can make a difference," on the outside. To deny his home confinement request would be a "disservice to the legislative intent of the statute" that created it, and would take away "that glimmer of hope" for other inmates who work hard to change, Sisti said.

"There have been few individuals, and maybe none, that have accomplished as much as Jeremiah Johnson has while in population at the New Hampshire State Prison," Sisti said. "This is not an individual who's free or paroled. It's a completely different approach. . . . If he's not someone who deserves it, I dare say, there's nobody who is."

Glenn Mathews, a corrections counselor and case manager at the prison, said Johnson came into his program scared but grew to become a leader in the group.

"Not too many inmates make it through. He was one who did . . . . But what you learn in class, you need to take back in practice," said Mathews. If Johnson continues relaying his message to kids and reaches just one, "we've saved another family from tragedy," he said.

One family that has not been spared the tragedy of Johnson's actions is the Guptills, said Ashlie Hooper, assistant Merrimack County Attorney. Nor has Krystal Fortin, who was driving the vehicle Johnson crashed into. Fortin, of Weare, broke her left heel and required numerous surgeries. She'll walk with a cane for the rest of her life, Hooper said.

Hooper also asked that Johnson's prior record be considered. In addition to a previous conviction for driving while intoxicated in 2000, Johnson was also convicted of possession of a controlled narcotic. While awaiting trial, he twice tested positive for drugs and lied about going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on at least two occasions, she said.

More important, Hooper said, Johnson's sentence was fully negotiated: No more than 15 years, no less than five - with the expectation he would spend his minimum sentence behind prison walls. She read an excerpt of the statement Judge Edward Fitzgerald made at Johnson's sentencing hearing in 2006.

" 'One thing that everybody should realize is that when I say five years, I mean five years,' " Hooper read. " 'And in New Hampshire, that means five years.' "

Guptill's family "walked away from the courtroom that day believing and relying on those statements," Hooper said, and allowing Johnson to go home to "sleep comfortably" in his bed and be with his family wasn't part of the sentence. "Five years in the prison is really what's just in this case."

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