DUI Crime and Punishment

February 23, 2016

February 2016’s Three Most Unusual DUIs?

Although it’s the shortest month in the year, February usually seems to drag on forever. Maybe that’s why some DUI drivers–no doubt including a few charged with DUI in Los Angeles–have exhibited some rather unusual behavior this month.

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• When a Sumter County, Florida, deputy pulled over Christopher Beauchemin in the early morning hours of February 1, the 45-year-old was standing outside of his car and holding a palm branch. The vehicle was running but was still in gear. When the deputy questioned Beauchemin, the driver said he thought the branch was part of his car that had fallen off. After failing a field sobriety test, Beauchemin got a ride to the Sumter County Detention Center, where authorities charged him with DUI.

• A 29-year old woman from Kittanning, Pennsylvania, must have had it in for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) when she got behind the wheel on February 21. After sideswiping another vehicle, the woman, suspected of DUI, managed to hit no fewer than four separate PennDOT signs before her car flipped and rolled. She escaped with only minor injuries; there’s no word on how much damage the signs suffered.

February 17, 2016

Lawyer Gets Unusual Private Hearing In DUI Case

by Michael Kraut

The average Joe or Jane charged with a Los Angeles DUI may sometimes wonder if there are two justice systems at work; one for every day folks, and the other for the well-connected. A recent incident across the country in Pennsylvania would probably reinforce their cynical attitudes.

On April 3, 2015, police noticed attorney Zachary A. Morey running a stop sign in Sinking Spring in Berks County. When the officers pulled him over, Morey failed several sobriety tests and his BAC measured three times the legal limit at 0.291.

According to the Reading Eagle, Morey had to appear in Judge Eleni Geishauser’s court for a hearing on the charges, which would typically result in the lawyer’s placement in the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition Program. (The judge can use this special pre-trial program for non-violent offenders who have no prior or a very limited record. If the defendant successfully completes the supervised program, the court dismisses the charges and expunges the case from the record.)

February 15, 2016

Should States Lower the BAC Limit for DUI Charges?

by Michael Kraut

In 2004, Delaware became the last state to set 0.08 as the blood alcohol limit for DUI charges. (California was a decade ahead of the pack; police could arrest anyone with a BAC of 0.08 for a DUI in Los Angeles beginning in 1990.)

But the National Transportation Board is saying that limit isn’t low enough. Included on its “Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements in 2016” is its desire to “end substance impairment in transportation.” That includes adopting a 0.05 BAC as the national standard for DUI.

The NTSB points out that one-third of all highway deaths in the last 15 years involve an alcohol-impaired driver. It says that, “When it comes to alcohol use, we know that impairment begins before a person’s BAC reaches 0.08 percent, the current legal limit in the United States. In fact, by the time it reaches that level, the risk of a fatal crash has more than doubled. That is why states should lower BAC levels to 0.05— or even lower.”
Continue reading

February 2, 2016

Dumb Things DUI Drivers Should Never Do

by Michael Kraut

Want to get police officers to pay more attention to you? Try pulling one of these dumb stunts when you’re at risk for a DUI in Los Angeles.

A woman from Baraboo, Minnesota, apparently couldn’t find her own vehicle when she stumbled out of a BP gas station and convenience store in Juneau County. So she did the next best thing–she got into a waiting deputy’s vehicle and drove away.
The deputy and a state trooper dealt with the unnamed 29-year-old woman and her intoxicated male friend at the gas station around 4 a.m. in the morning. The woman apparently got tired of the discussion and left. Fortunately, witnesses saw her take off and pointed the trooper and the deputy–who were riding in the state police car–in the right direction. They soon caught up with her and managed to pull her over.

Turns out, this wasn’t the woman’s first DWI charge; she already had two on her record.

Bradley James Mitchell, on the other hand, didn’t try to flee the scene when officers stopped him on suspicion of DWI. But the 38-year-old from Weirsdale, Florida, should have tried a different excuse for swerving across two roads late in the evening of January 13th.

Mitchell told officers his low blood sugar caused his erratic driving. But medics called to the scene confirmed that his blood sugar was just fine. After Mitchell failed sobriety tests, officers searched his car and found methamphetamine and Clonazepam. He was also driving on a license suspended because of a previous DUI. Continue reading

January 27, 2016

Judge Refuses Pleas in DUI Cases

by Michael Kraut

Pity the poor judges who have to spend multiple hours in court each week hearing cases involving DUIs in Los Angeles. The stories they hear about deaths and destruction caused by people driving under the influence are often devastating.
One judge in Laramie County, Wyoming, has had enough. A recent article in the online Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported that Judge Steven Sharpe is taking a hard line when it comes to plea deals for drivers accused of DUI. When faced with a repeat offender, he now won’t accept a deal unless it includes some jail time for the driver.

In a case highlighted by the Tribune Eagle, Jeremy Shutt, now 28, had appeared before the judge last year on his fourth DUI charge in four years. Under Wyoming law, that would make Shutt’s latest arrest a felony, which meant incarceration time.
Shutt’s attorney had negotiated a plea deal with the county: five years of probation, with three to five years in prison if Shutt failed to live up to his end of the bargain (i.e. stay sober and stay out of trouble). But the judge, noting that Shutt had spent only a single day in jail on this latest charge, said that wasn’t enough. He’d keep Shutt out of state prison, but only if Shutt agreed to spend 120 days in jail.

January 20, 2016

DO Some Los Angeles DUI Offenders Get Preferential Treatment?

by Michael Kraut

Some celebrities arrested for a DUI in Los Angeles appears to get off with a very light punishment. Although justice is supposed to be blind, the truth is that people with money and/or connections frequently do get a better deal.

Take the case of the Texas teen whose defense for killing four people in a DUI accident was that he had “affluenza.” The attorney for Ethan Crouch, who had a blood alcohol content of .24 when arrested, claimed that his client had never learned to take responsibility because his parents’ wealth had shielded him from the consequences of his actions. Crouch received a controversially light sentence of 10 years of probation and treatment in a residential, in-patient treatment facility. (Apparently hisaffluenza hasn’t been cured; he fled to Mexico, and he is currently fighting extradition back to the U.S.)

Contrast that to the sentence imposed on a 23-year-old Texas man of moderate means who killed four people in a DUI accident at the South by Southwest Festival in 2014. Rashad Owens, who had a .114 BAC reading at the time of his arrest, received a sentence of life in prison. (There were a few aggravating factors, however: Owens was driving a stolen car at the time and fleeing from police.)

January 18, 2016

Wow – Verdicts Overturned in 30-Year Old DUI Cases

by Michael Kraut

If a judge had accepted your guilty plea case involving a Los Angeles DUI, and new evidence turned up, would you take the time and spend the money to have that verdict overturned? What if your conviction dated all the way back to 1986? Some people in Massachusetts who pleaded guilty to DUI are willing to do it.

District Court in session. Edgartown.

A recent article in the Vineyard Gazette (the newspaper for the upscale Martha’s Vineyard) reported that attorneys who practice in the Edgartown District Court are taking a look at the operating under the influence (OUI) cases handled by Judge Brian Rowe over his 20 years in office. When accepting an accused DUI driver’s guilty plea, Judge Rowe apparently neglected to follow a procedure called colloquy. According to the Gazette, the judge was supposed to advise the guilty party that he/she had the right to a jury trial if desired and to ask each defendant if he or she fully understood the consequences of the decision to make a guilty plea. There’s a box on some court forms that the judge should have checked if the discussion had taken place.

January 11, 2016

New Year’s Eve DUI Accident Injures DC Pedestrians

by Michael Kraut

Last November, a man eventually charged with DUI in Los Angeles killed two people and injured several others when his car hit a minivan and then swerved onto a sidewalk. A similar accident—fortunately non-fatal so far—occurred in the District of Columbia on New Year’s Day.

Twenty-five year old Malik Lloyd was apparently trying to turn from northbound 17th Street onto L Street in the early morning hours of January 1. Lloyd’s depth perception must have been off, however, because instead of making the corner he ended up skidding his car across the road, jumping the sidewalk and crashing into a floral planter and utility pole. His car continued down the sidewalk for several more feet, hitting seven people who were standing outside the “Bar Code” nightclub. Emergency crews took the victims to the hospital. Most were released, suffering only minor injuries, but one, the bar’s bouncer, was in critical condition the next day.

December 28, 2015

Must Read, Jaw Dropping DUI Stories from 2015

by Michael Kraut

Unfortunately, crazy DUI stories span every state and continent, and the impact of driving while under the influence of drugs and alcohol affects all ages, genders, ethnicities, and religions. Here are three more of the most astonishing DUI stories 2015 had to offer:

1. Woman drives into the homecoming parade. In Oklahoma last October, Adacia Chambers drove into an Oklahoma State University parade crowd. She killed three adults and one 2-year old and injured 47 more. The 25-year-old faces four counts of second-degree murder and 46 charges of felony assault. She could face life in prison if convicted on all counts. While alcohol was not a factor, she allegedly had been driving under the influence of drugs.

December 9, 2015

Lack of Front Tires Gives DUI Driver Away

by Michael Kraut

Note to drivers who want to overindulge and drive anyway: If you are trying to avoid getting nabbed on a Los Angeles DUI charge, make sure that all the important parts of your vehicle are intact before you head down the road. If police spot you driving a vehicle without some vital part—like, say, front tires(!!)—they just may get suspicious and pull you over.

To wit, Fox 32 in Chicago recently reported about the arrest of Marco A. Nieves, who hails from the northwest side of the Windy City. A police officer in the suburb of Riverside spotted Nieves around 4 a.m. on the morning of November 29th. Nieve’s car had heavy front-end damage and was missing the two front tires. Although Nieves allegedly had been traveling slowly, the metal rims of the car were throwing sparks.

When the officer pulled Nieves over, the 46-year-old reported, in slurred speech, that he had been in an accident. Blood on his shirt seemed to confirm the story. Police, noting his glassy eyes and the strong smell of alcohol on his breath, gave him several field sobriety tests, which he allegedly failed. Nieves refused to take a breathalyzer test, however.