PORTLAND (AP) – The state supreme court on Thursday upheld the conviction and sentence of a man who was given a lengthy sentence following his 13th drunken-driving conviction.

Randall Horr was sentenced last year in Cumberland County Superior Court to 11 years and five months in state prison.

Justice Thomas Delahanty II imposed consecutive sentences of five years each for operating under the influence and being a habitual offender. Horr received additional jail time on three lesser crimes.

In his appeal, Horr said he shouldn’t have received consecutive sentences and that his trial was not fair because jurors somehow became aware of his driving record despite measures taken to avoid such a scenario.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court found that there was no evidence of jurors becoming aware of Horr’s lengthy driving record and said the trial judge acted appropriately in imposing consecutive sentences.

Horr, who was living in Windham at the time, was pulled over in Portland on Nov. 19, 2001, after taking his sister’s license plates and attaching them to a Ford Thunderbird that was for sale in her yard.

A motorist who observed the Thunderbird driving erratically used a cell phone to call police, and an officer followed the car into an apartment parking lot where Horr was found standing outside the passenger door.

He told the officer that a man named Danny Libby was the driver and that the man had run into the apartment building. Horr was arrested after a search of the apartment building failed to reveal the phantom driver.

Horr had a lengthy driving record that included 36 total suspensions of his driver’s license. His criminal record also included convictions for theft, drug possession, stolen checks and assault.

“In thirty-two years of being involved with criminal cases on one side of the bench or the other, I don’t recall any person with a motor vehicle record like Mr. Horr’s,” Delahanty said in sentencing him.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Tice said Thursday that Horr had at least 13 drunken driving convictions from Maine to Alaska.

It was difficult to determine the precise number because there could be other out-of-state convictions, Tice said.

Mary Davis, a Portland lawyer who handled Horr’s appeal, did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Thursday.

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