By guest-writer
After a long legal battle, which included the resolution of a dispute about the validity of the charges at the Illinois Supreme Court, a woman finally pleaded guilty this week to an aggravated DUI after causing a multiple-car accident that killed two motorcycle drivers.
According to the Chicago Tribune, 27-year-old Alia Bernard recently pleaded guilty to the charge of aggravated felony DUI after she admitted to having marijuana in her system when the fatal crash occurred.
Sources indicate that the fatal accident occurred in May 2009, when Bernard apparently bent over to grab her sunglasses and lost control of her vehicle.
When Bernard, a resident of Aurora, Illinois, was reaching for her glasses, she rear-ended a stopped car on an Illinois state highway at a very high speed. The collision sent the stopped car flying forward, and it then struck another car that was waiting to take a left turn.
When this second collision sent the turning car further into the intersection, the car created an obstacle for two motorcyclists who were lawfully traveling through a green light. The force of the collision killed both motorcyclists.
In all, the accident that was started by Bernard’s negligent driving involved nine different vehicles, injured 12 people, and resulted in the death of Wade and Denise Thomas, who were 44 and 45 years old, respectively.
Originally, prosecutors alleged that Bernard was texting when the accident occurred, although she and her DUI lawyer offered a different story.
According to Bernard’s lawyer, “[i]t was sunny and the sun was bouncing off the chrome of the motorcycles and she went to get her sunglasses and when she looked up, there was a car in the road.”
In addition, even though tests showed that Bernard tested positive for marijuana, she claims that she had not smoked pot for three or four days before the accident and was completely sober when the collision occurred.
Despite this claim, though, prosecutors raised her charges from the lesser crime of reckless homicide when the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that any amount of an illegal substance in a driver’s system during a fatal accident warrants the charge of aggravated DUI.
This news has upset some legal experts in Illinois, as it suggests that, for example, drivers who smoked marijuana several days before getting into even a minor accident could still be liable for an aggravated DUI charge.
In response, supporters of the decision say that a zero-tolerance policy will deter drivers from getting behind the wheel if they have a shred of doubt about their sobriety.
Regardless of the validity of the decision, Bernard has admitted responsibility and pleaded guilty to the charges. Sources indicate that Bernard, who has no past criminal record, could face six to 28 years in prison.
By guest-writer
Librarians, particularly older and more established ones, don’t seem like the most likely culprits for a DUI arrest. A recent DUI incident in New York City, however, challenges this unfair assumption, and serves as a reminder that drunk driving is not solely an activity for the young and foolish.
According to the New York Post, Dr. Anthony Marx, the president of the New York Public Library system, was recently arrested after running his car in reverse into a sanitation truck.
Sources indicate that Marx put his 2009 Audi A4, which is registered to the library, into reverse in order to avoid a roadblock that was needed to block cars from the route of this year’s New York City Marathon.
The 52-year-old librarian narrowly avoided one truck before striking the truck that got him into trouble. The accident occurred in East Harlem around mid-afternoon.
When police officers arrived at the scene, they smelled alcohol and suspected that Marx was not sober, and administered a blood alcohol test. When he took the test, which was given about an hour after his arrest, Marx blew a .19, which is twice the legal limit of .08.
In a statement released to local media outlets, Marx was very contrite, saying that he deeply regretted “embarrassment caused to my family and to the New York Public Library.”
After his arrest, Marx was charged with an aggravated DWI (in some states, “driving while intoxicated” replaces the more common charge of “driving under the influence”) and was released without bail following a court appearance.
Sources indicate that the driver of the sanitation truck that Marx hit was able and willing to offer testimony, and he shared his story with the New York Post after the accident.
The driver, sanitation worker Franklin Hernandez, says that he jumped out of his truck after it was hit, placed his hands in front of Marx, and demanded that he stop moving. This plea apparently convinced Marx to stay in place.
Shortly after the accident, police officers who were providing security for the marathon arrived at the scene. Franklin claims that they were there only minutes after the accident.
According to Franklin, Marx had to remain handcuffed in his car for up to an hour, as police had no route out of the street until the marathon was over. Once it was over, they took Marx to the precinct headquarters and administered the blood alcohol test.
This incident offers a valuable lesson about the dangers of drunk driving. DUI arrests can strike anyone, regardless of their age or social position.
DUI arrests may be a misdemeanor or a felony, and they sometimes result in jail time, lost licenses, or hefty fines. Factors that judges consider when delivering punishments for DUI offenders include prior driving history and past alcohol-related arrests.
By guest-writer
Elderly drivers are not often viewed as drunk driving threats, but this common perception was recently proved flawed when an 83-year-old drunk driver in California struck and killed a man riding on a Segway.
According to Patch.com, Dick Chappell, a resident of Los Gatos, California, was booked into the Santa Clara County jail this past weekend after he drove his car into a Segway-riding man on a crosswalk.
Sources indicate that the incident took place early Sunday evening. Chappell was driving his 1991 Lexus SUV, and apparently ran a red light. When he crossed the intersection, Chappell struck 72-year-old Marschelle Syverson, a resident of San Jose.
Syverson did not die immediately from his injuries. He survived until he reached the San Jose Regional Medical Center, where he later passed away.
While police have not yet released information about the Chappell’s level of intoxication, it seems safe to guess that his blood alcohol content was above the legal limit.
Arresting officers determine that Chappell was probably inebriated when the interviewed him at the scene of the crime. Police also indicate that Chappell was in a state of shock after the fatal accident.
After his arrest, police charged Chappell with several counts, including driving under the influence of alcohol, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and a felony DUI.
While the incident may have been prevented if Chappell had been driving sober, it also raises interesting questions about the safety of Segway devices, which were once hailed as the future of transportation but have had a hard time gaining traction in the consumer market.
At first glance, it would seem that a person riding a Segway across a crosswalk would be more visible than a simple pedestrian. Thus, the Segway might be more easily seen by a speeding driver.
On the other hand, people operating Segway devices, particularly riders who are inexperienced, may not have a firm grasp on their maneuverability. So, when a Segway rider is in danger, he or she may not be able to respond quickly.
This, of course, is all speculation, as it is not clear whether Syverson was an experienced Segway operator. In addition, Syverson’s ability to maneuver the device in a quick fashion is not really relevant because he had the right-of-way while crossing a crosswalk.
Nevertheless, the incident does raise questions about a pedestrian’s safety while operating a Segway.
In addition, the incident shines a light on an under-appreciated aspect of DUI arrests. While DUI arrests disproportionately strike younger drivers, elderly drivers may still be capable of getting behind the wheel while they are drunk.
And, when octogenarian drive drunk, they may be further harming their already compromised reflexes. If you have a grandparent or an elderly friend who drives after drinking alcohol, remind them of the potentially fatal consequences of drunk driving.
By guest-writer
All DUI arrests are not created equal. Some are quiet, relatively mundane affairs that garner little press attention. Some drunk driving arrests, though, provide excellent fodder for the evening news.
One such DUI arrest occurred last week in California when a man suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol ran his car directly into the front of a police cruiser.
According to a report in the Riverside County Press-Enterprise, 50-year-old Deepmohinder Singh Kapur was arrested for a suspected felony DUI after he slammed his car into the front of a police vehicle.
Sources indicate that the police car belonged to a member of the Riverside County Gang Task Force. The officer in the car was transporting two men to jail when the accident occurred. Fortunately, though, no one was seriously hurt in the collision.
The absence of injuries was particularly fortunate given the nature of the wreck. Apparently, immediately before the accident, both cars were head in opposite directions on an interstate highway in the early afternoon.
The police officer saw Kapur’s Volvo sedan crossing the center dividing lane, but he did not have enough time to maneuver his vehicle out of the way. All he could do was slow down.
The accident cause severe damage to the front of both the Volvo and the police cruiser, and the impact of the collision set off the drivers’ airbags in both cars.
The police officer suffered some cuts to his arm during the collision. In addition, the detainees in the back of the car, who were wearing handcuffs, suffered some facial injuries and one may have injured his wrist.
The detainees had been arrested in connection with a gang-related stabbing incident and were being transported to a detention center at the time of the accident.
Both the police officer and the detainees were taken to the hospital for their non-life-threatening injuries, which will delay the arrestee’s inevitable trip to the detention center.
As for Kapur, only time will tell what punishment a local court will eventually level against him, but he may be facing serious fines, jail time, or a suspended license, especially because this is not his first DUI offense.
In addition to standard DUI charges, Kapur may also face possible punishment for reckless driving, endangering the life of others, and whatever else a local prosecutor wishes to throw at him.
Of course, when police are usually tasked with discovering drunk drivers, they have to pull over suspects and administer a range of blood alcohol tests to determine their level of inebriation.
Here, Kapur saved the police officer a significant amount of legwork, albeit in a dangerous fashion. Usually, drunk drivers do not readily offer themselves to police in the form of a head-on collision.
By guest-writer
This week, a Florida police officer pleaded not guilty to charges of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter after being convicted in the wake of an accident that killed a young mother.
According to the Miami Herald, 24-year-old Peter Munoz did not appear in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court for his arraignment. Rather, his DUI attorney entered a plea of not guilty for him, which is allowed under Florida law.
Sources indicate that Munoz, who had been a police officer in Coral Springs for five months before the accident, was speeding through an intersection late one night this July when he struck the car of Jennifer Gutierrez, a paralegal who was traveling home from her boyfriend’s house.
The Miami Herald reports that Munoz’s Volkswagen struck the driver’s side of Gutierrez’s BMW with such force that the victim was impaled into the driver’s side door. When paramedics arrived on the scene, they had to cut the car into several pieces in order to remove Gutierrez.
Toxicology reports taken after the accident showed that Gutierrez had not been drinking, but Munoz did not perform as well on his blood alcohol test.
A police affidavit taken shortly after the accident shows that Munoz had a blood alcohol content of .229 one hour after the crash, which is almost three times more than the legal limit of .008.
Police reports from that night also indicate that Munoz did not attempt to take any evasive action to miss the BMW; instead, he simply plowed right through it.
After the accident, Munoz was taken to a local hospital, and later released home before being arrested a few weeks later on charges of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide.
Understandably, the family of the victim was upset that Munoz was not immediately taken into custody, and has alleged that Munoz received special treatment from his colleagues in the Coral Springs police force.
The Coral Springs police department, however, promptly fired Munoz when he was arrested in late September. The official termination notice, though, does not explicitly mention the car crash.
Munoz likely faces a lengthy court battle, particularly in light of his not guilty plea. Sources indicate that the arrestee’s attorney believe that the victim may have been on her cell phone at the time of the accident, which may have caused her to drive recklessly.
In her defense, Gutierrez’s family claims these allegations are untrue, and that Munoz is solely responsible for the accident.
In the meantime, the family of Jennifer Gutierrez will mourn the loss of a promising young woman, who was apparently studying for her final exams at a local college on the night of the accident.
Gutierrez is survived by her 4-year-old daughter, who was not in her car at the time of the accident.
By guest-writer
Because of the blinding influence of alcohol, drunk drivers attempting to elude the police often think they’re police-evading tactics are more clever than they actually are.
Common tactics include driving too slow or too fast, masking swerving by simply swerving really slow, or blaming red eyes and slow reflexes on a lack of sleep, or prescription pills.
The most infamous DUI offenders, though, are the people who cause car accidents, and then flee the scene out of fear of being caught driving under the influence of alcohol.
A man in Louisville recently learned just how difficult escaping the scene of a DUI accident can be.
According to WDRB News, which is based in Louisville, Kentucky, 37-year-old Jesse Gaines was arrested last week after police tracked his car by following the path of leaky fluids from Gaines’ wounded vehicle.
Before his arrest, Gaines had allegedly been involved in a three-car accident in downtown Louisville. The police report from the accident indicates that Gaines swerved into oncoming traffic and struck two cars before speeding back into the road and then striking a pole.
After the accident, Gaines fled the scene, which led to phone calls to Louisville about a drunk driver on the loose.
Officers did not have a hard time locating Gaines, as they simply followed the path of a leaking fluid that had started dripping from Gaines’ car at the scene of the accident.
When Gaines was finally arrested by the police, he admitted that he had just left a strip club where he had consumed two “large liquor drinks.”
The police report also claims that Gaines smelled of alcohol, had red eyes, and was unable to stand without falling down. When the police administered a breathalyzer test, Gaines blew a remarkable .26, which is far above the legal limit of .08.
After his less-than-sterling performance on the blood alcohol test, Gaines was promptly arrested and charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
To add insult to injury, Gaines was also charged with a failure to maintain insurance. This, of course, will be disappointing news to the other drivers whose cars were struck by Gaines during his ill-fated drive.
While Gaines faces a world of legal trouble, it’s worth noting that DUI arrests can be serious crimes even in the absence of an actual accident.
A DUI arrest often leads to jail time, a suspended license, and hefty fines. Because of the potentially severe impact of DUI charges, many people who are arrested seek legal information from a local DUI lawyer.
Courts take DUI arrests very seriously, but with the proper legal information, people who are arrested are able to deal with the charges with minimal damages to their finances and their reputation.
By guest-writer
When drinking and driving converge, the results can be disastrous. And, while they are difficult to predict, drunk driving accidents often seem to claim the lives of tragically young victims.
This harsh reality happened once again after a recent fatal car accident in Northfield, Vermont, that was allegedly caused by drunk driving.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, 18-year-old Renee Robbins died after a car containing eight Norwich University students crashed in a single car accident.
The car was being driven by 22-year-old Derek Saber, who was arrested by local police under suspicion of a DUI shortly after the accident.
In addition to Robbins’ death, three other people in the car suffered “critical” injuries during the accident. Four other students required hospitalization after the crash.
Before the accident, the eight occupants of the car had been at an off-campus party early Sunday morning. The passengers were all freshmen students at Norwich, and they lived in the same dormitory on campus.
The incident had a severe impact on the campus’s collective psyche, and many members of the campus community are grappling for answers.
According to Norwich President Richard Schneider, the incident was “an unfathomable tragedy,” and “the entire Norwich family is grieving over this.”
While the families of the accident victims face their own pains, the driver of the car and the leader of the party the students left before the accident are facing legal troubles of their own.
The driver, Derek Saber, allegedly had a blood alcohol level of .16, which doubled the legal limit of .08. He was arrested and held on $100,000 bail in a county jail in Vermont.
In addition to Saber’s legal troubles, 20-year-old Logan O’Neill, who hosted the party, was charged with various counts including possession of alcohol, enabling consumption of alcohol with a minor, and violating the terms of his release, stemming from a prior DUI charge of his own.
At the time of the party, O’Neill was under strict orders to avoid consuming alcohol due to the conditions established by a court after his second drunk driving arrest earlier this year.
Drunk driving accidents are one of the most common causes of teenage deaths in the United States. This statistic is particularly troubling in light of the fact that drunk driving accidents are completely preventable.
By Topher
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this one says it all. Two on-duty Miami police officers mug and smile for the camera while surrounded by five young women celebrating a bachelorette party July 2 at the Clevelander hotel.
Later the same night, one of the officers, Derick Kuilan, took the bachelorette for a joyride on a department-owned ATV, crashing into and seriously injuring two innocent beachgoers.
The picture was released Tuesday by Miami-Dade prosecutors as they charged Kuilan with two felony counts of reckless driving with serious bodily injury and two counts of DUI with serious bodily injury. The second officer, Rolando Gutierrez, does not face criminal charges.
“It is mind-boggling that they felt comfortable enough to do something like that,” Miami Beach Police Chief Carlos Noriega told the Miami Herald.
Both officers have been fired from the department since the time of the incident.
Details of what allegedly happened are outlined in a warrant prepared by prosecutor David I. Gilbert and Miami Beach detective Robert Silvagni:
Derick Kuilan was assigned to ATV patrol, midnight shift, on July 3 and Officer Rolando Gutierrez was assigned to patrol mid-Beach.
That night, the pair of officers walked into the Clevelander hotel bar, a known attraction for tourists, around 5 a.m.
A group of young women from Pennsylvania were celebrating a bachelorette party when the officers arrived. After posing for a picture with the group, Kuilan and Gutierrez began dancing and drinking.
Kuilan then invited the bachelorette, Adalee Martin, to take a ride with him on the ATV he had parked nearby, to which Martin agreed.
The two drove south along the beach at alternating speeds, turning the headlights on and off as they neared approaching pedestrians. When they arrived at the end of the beach and turned around, they drove back north with the vehicle’s lights turned off.
On the drive back, the ATV crashed into Kitzie Nicanor and Luis Almonte, who were on the beach dipping their feet in the water. Bystanders claimed that the ATV whizzed by and that “they could barely see it, because it had no lights on and it was traveling fast,” according to the warrant.
Almonte suffered a broken femur, requiring surgery, while Nicanor had to have her spleen removed and remains hospitalized in serious condition.
Kuilan surrendered to the Miami-Dade County Jail after being charged Tuesday and has already posted $30,000 bail. His arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 25.
By Topher
Perhaps the most important rule for people fighting DUI accusations is to be sober when making court appearances. A former sheriff’s deputy in Orange County, California, failed to heed this rule, and will face the consequences.
Allan James Waters, 38, had been facing a likely sentence of 16 months in prison for his conviction on several counts, including a felony DUI and charges that he had illegally tried to obtain prescription medicines.
Waters, however, appeared at his first sentencing hearing with slurred speech and an inability to keep his balance. Waters was then placed in police custody for several weeks after the judge said he was in no condition to be sentenced.
Several weeks later, the judge finally doubled his sentence to 32 months due to Waters’ previous behavior in the courtroom.
A term of Waters’ initial $100,000 bail was that he had to remain sober. After Waters appeared drunk at his initial hearing, the judge ordered him back into police custody and raised his bail to $250,000.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Waters had been involved in a messy accident and had a history of other felony violations.
In April, Waters pled guilty to felony driving under the influence causing bodily injury after an accident involving a serious injury to a 78 year-old woman.
Waters’ legal problems, though, extended beyond the DUI charge. He was also charged with two felony counts of selling a substance in lieu of cocaine and nine felony counts of fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance.
The DUI accident occurred in March 2010 when Waters crashed into the back of a car at a red light. Sources indicate that Waters spoke with other deputies for about 30 minutes after the accident and then promptly left the scene.
The officers’ decision to let Waters leave the scene of the first accident proved to be a mistake.
Later that same day, Waters was still driving under the influence when he swerved into oncoming traffic and struck a vehicle driven by an elderly woman. The impact was so severe that the woman needed back surgery after the accident.
Toxicology reports later revealed that Waters had been under the influence of the prescription drugs zolpidem and hydrocodone.
After the initial traffic collision, Waters’ behavior did not improve. He was cited for trading fake cocaine for prescription drugs and trying to illegally obtain drugs from doctors.
To no one’s surprise, Waters has been relieved of his duties as a sheriff’s deputy.
By guest-writer
An Illinois man, Cecil Conner, was found guilty of the drunk driving death of his girlfriend’s 5-year-old son.
The conviction came after Conner’s defense team attempted to shift some of the blame for the child’s death to a police officer. The jury decided, after hours of deliberation in the Will County courtroom, that Conner alone was responsible for the tragic outcome of the May 10 DUI crash.
Conner crashed into a tree, drove through a fence, and hit another tree in the accident that killed young Michael Langford, Jr., before being charged with drunk driving, according to an article in the Herald-News.
Part of Conner’s unsuccessful DUI defense was the claim that police had some part to play in his drunk driving and subsequent accident. He argued that police arrested his girlfriend, his designated driver, on a suspended license during a previous traffic stop, then ordered him to drive home. Conner claimed that they threatened to arrest him if he didn’t drive away.
Conner was drunk, and family members have criticized law enforcement for, according to their story, ignoring the fact that he was an impaired driver when they ordered him to drive home.
The prosecution in the case successfully argued that Conner alone was responsible for the decision to drive drunk and endanger the child.
Per Illinois DUI law, Conner could face up to 14 years behind bars. He’ll be sentenced in May.
Conner admitted to being drunk following a house party. His girlfriend, Kathie LaFond, was driving, but was arrested on the way home. Conner took the wheel, and police said that neither Conner nor LaFond informed the police that he had been drinking that night. Prosecution were also skeptical that police ordered Conner to drive home.
Conner, however, continued to drive drunk, even after he called a friend for help. The friend told him to stop the car, but Conner drove on, reaching 66 miles per hour at points, before he drove over several lawns, through trees, catapulting his car to the point that it uprooted a tree.
Young Langford did not survive the poor decision.
The jury deliberated for nine hours before reaching its guilty verdict on two aggravated drunk driving charges.
By guest-writer
Mitchell Green, of Kern County, California, near Bakersfield, served in the army for six years in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and he was a firefighter on the local force. He didn’t have a criminal record to speak of, and his friends called him a model citizen.
Before the night of February 2, 2010 , that is. On that night, Green drove drunk, and he got into a car accident. He collided with a vehicle carrying Michelle Maxwell and her teenage daughter. Michelle Maxwell died, and Mitchell Green now faces nine years in prison for charges related to California DUI, according to the Bakersfield Californian.
Her husband, Jerry Maxwell, acknowledged that, no matter what the sentence was, their lives were forever changed by Green’s decision. Judge Charles H. Brehmer noted during the sentencing that Green didn’t mean to hurt anyone, much less cause their death.
Maxwell’s mother, Marceline Seberger, spoke in court about the loss that she had suffered, emphasizing that there was no way that Green could know the way that they felt. She did believe that Green was remorseful, however, following the trial, saying that she could see the emotion in Green’s eyes. The last thing she said to Green was, “May you make peace with God before you see him face to face.”
Maxwell’s daughters told the Californian that they forgave Green for his actions the night his DUI caused their mother’s death. But they acknowledged the continued pain they would face. “She will never be able to spoil my children or even meet them,” said Michaela Maxwell, who was in the car the night of the crash.
Jerry Maxwell felt less kindness in the hours following the crash. Green was in a hospital bed near his family, according to the Californian, and he acknowledged a desire to hurt Green after learning that his wife had died. But his wife’s memory stayed his hand. “I heard my wife’s voice saying, ‘It’s not worth it,’” he told the paper.
Green had plead no contest to the felony gross vehicular manslaughter charge in December. His pickup truck collided with the Hyundai Sonata occupied by the Maxwells. Green had run a red light, and he didn’t brake even as he hit the smaller car.
His blood alcohol content registered at .13, over the .08 legal limit across the country.
By guest-writer
Anthony Guarino, 57, of San Diego, California, will stand trial on felony charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, DUI and other charges, following a deadly crash that killed an area father.
According to an article from 10 News, Marc William Durham was killed in the crash of August 20, 2010. He was a father of five who was driving his family to the movies when they were rear-ended by Guarino’s BMW as they pulled up to a red light. Afterward, Guarino was charged with drunk driving in California.
Durham, a former security chief for General Dynamics, had retired just one week before he was killed in the accident. Other members of his family were in the car at the time of the DUI crash, though they escaped with injuries, saying that their father got the worst of it.
Guarino was allegedly drunk at the wheel of his BMW, and he will stand trial on the felony DUI charges after admitting to police that he had been drinking whiskey at a bar before he took to the roads that night.
The accident happened at about 9 p.m. The accident investigator in the case told the court that Guarino was traveling between 50 and 60 miles per hour in the BMW when it hit the Toyota Corolla owned by Durham.
When Guarino rear-ended the car, it started a chain reaction of collisions, and ultimately four other vehicles were involved, with additional injuries to passengers in those vehicles, including an 8-year-old boy.
Guarino told police that he had consumed around five Jack Daniels before he headed home from the bar. He admitted to police also that his driving was affected by how much alcohol he drank, but, according to the article, “he didn’t know how.”
Officers at the scene determined based on their judgment and observation that Guarino was intoxicated. When his blood alcohol content was measured several hours later, he registered a BAC of .15 percent, which is well over the .08 legal limit for driving while intoxicated. And it is likely, according to the claim of Deputy District Attorney Chandelle Konstanzer in court, that it was much higher at the time of the accident.
The defense for Guarino made the argument that his client was not guilty of gross negligence, and that a sleep apnea condition may have contributed to Guarino passing out while at the wheel.
The trial is set for early December, and Guarino is free on $100,000 bail, but he is not allowed to drink alcohol or drive.
By Topher
Michael Penachio was driving his Mercedes Benz over 100 miles per hour down the highway when he crashed into and killed a single mother and journalist, Danielle Baker in 2007.
Penachio was drunk driving down the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago, Illinois when the avoidable tragedy struck, according to the Chicago Tribune article.
Now Penachio will do his time: 5 years in prison. The DUI sentence comes after several years of plea negotiations that frustrated Baker’s family. Ultimately, however, Penachio pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in exchange for the five-year prison sentence. He could have been sentenced to up to 14 years in prison.
Penachio spoke to the court and to Baker’s family. “Mr. and Mrs. Baker, I’m so sorry for all the pain and sorrow I have brought to your lives. I’m sorry that it has taken this long for you to hear me say it.”
The agreement took so long because a new judge was selected in the case, and then the case was subject to numerous delays.
Penachio sought to get a sentence that didn’t include jail time, so that he could keep his job as a financial broker and maintain the health insurance that helped fund care for his son, who has cerebral palsy.
The father of the victim, Derrick Baker, said that he was glad that this chapter of the ordeal was over, and he accepted Penachio’s apology.
“It meant a lot to me, it really did,” he said. “As I said before, it would be a worse feeling to know that someone had no remorse for their actions, and it did do me a lot of good to hear it. I believe he was sincere. I wish him no harm, and I hope that he is able to move on with his life as well.”
Penachio set aside $54,000 as a part of settled civil suit, as part of a college fund for Danielle Baker’s daughter. She is four years old.
“This will never be over for my daughter,” Baker said. “She will never be back with me, but this part of it is over. I’m glad it’s over. I feel for his family as well, and I hope everybody is just able to heal from this and everyone just gets a chance to move on.”
By Topher
A San Ramon, California, man is suspected of drunk driving and hit-and-run after police arrested him in the wake of what CBS 5 is calling a “drunken driving rampage.” The man, Cainan Schierholtz, is the brother of a pro baseball player for the San Francisco Giants, Nate Schierholtz.
Cainan Schierholtz was arrested on a recent Sunday morning, after, according to police, he hit a bicyclist, a pedestrian, a light pole and two cars.
The call came it at about 10 in the morning, with reports that a car was driving recklessly on Danville Boulevard, in Danville, California.
Then came the report that the driver allegedly hit a cyclist riding in a bike lane on the same road. Schierholtz allegedly did not stop, though, continuing down the road. Soon after that he allegedly hit a pedestrian who was standing in the bike lane.
Again, he didn’t stop to offer assistance or acknowledge either of the accidents. Instead, he allegedly continued driving, then swerved into traffic and hit a pickup truck. Not done yet, police said that he kept on driving still, until he veered up onto the sidewalk and rammed into a light pole, which fell to the ground.
Even after all of that, Schierholtz still kept driving, according to police. He rear-ended a sport utility vehicle, and then drove down a dead-end street.
The driver of the pick-up truck who had been previously hit followed Schierholtz, and then used his truck to pin him into the dead-end street so that he couldn’t get away.
According to a witness, the suspect’s airbags had deployed, so that he was awkwardly pinned in the car. And yet, despite even that, he was still driving.
Eventually Schierholtz realized he couldn’t get past the makeshift blockade, and he stopped in front of the pickup truck. The truck’s driver and several other bystanders pulled the suspect out of his car and restrained him until the police got there.
Schierholtz was booked on suspicion of four counts of DUI causing bodily harm, three counts of hit-and-run causing injury, two counts of hit-and-run causing property damage, and driving without a license, according to CBS. He was held on $350,000 bail.
By Topher
When there is a chance to affirm justice, and to see that a criminal gets their due, it is often the victim of a crime who raises the loudest voice and brings safety and security concerns into the public sphere.
That is the case in Tennessee, as a woman who had to struggle to survive after being hit by a drunk driver is raising the alarm and attempting to keep the perpetrator of that DUI behind bars.
Eveylen Turner, of Clarksville, Tennessee, was in a coma for three weeks after Joseph Chimahosky crashed into her. Chimahosky was drunk when he hit Turner. He was found guilty of the crime, and he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.
He has so far served five months of that sentence as part of his DUI penalties, but is now facing a parole board that will determine if he stays inside the joint or heads back out into the world.
With the parole hearing offering a place for Turner to state her views and potentially impact his stay in prison, Turner vowed to Channel 4 News in Nashville that she would do whatever it would take to keep Chimahosky behind bars.
“I don’t think he has served his time,” said the victim of the man’s drunk driving crash. “I think that he will get out and do the same again. The next person might not be as lucky as me.”
This was not Chimahosky’s first conviction for drunk driving, either. He had two previous convictions for DUI before his third, in the crash that almost killed an innocent person.
Turner made sure to be at Chimajosky’s parole hearing recently, bringing along pictures, X-rays and her medical bills, which totaled more than $1 million, as she built her case against him.
According to Channel 4 News, her and her family pleaded with the hearings officer to keep Chimahosky in jail.
Assistant District Attorney Chris Dotson held a similar position. “I have no faith in him getting out of here,” he said, “and endangering everybody in the roadway in this county.”
Chimahosky has been in trouble even while in jail. There are reports of an incident on four occasions. He told the parole officers that “not a day goes by I don’t think about my actions. As much as I want to, I can’t change what happened that night or what bad decisions I made that night, but I can change the decisions I make in the future.”
The parole board’s decision should take 3 to 4 weeks.
