By Michael
The charges continue to mount for a man who drove his car into a Carl’s Jr. restaurant in El Cajon, California, killing one unsuspecting driver.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the driver, Richard Alfred Daus, was recently charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence at the time of the deadly accident.
If he is convicted of these crimes, Daus could face a maximum of 15 years to life in prison. His charge falls into a section of the law that calls for a harsher sentence for those who have multiple previous DUI convictions on their record, or a prior vehicular manslaughter conviction.
Daus qualifies for this section of the law because he was convicted of reckless homicide in Cook County, Illinois, in 1952, and he has a drunk driving conviction for 1988, which occurred in Alaska.
Daus had a blood-alcohol content of 0.22 percent two hours after the fatal crash occurred, meaning he was almost three times above the legal limit for blood alcohol content, which is 0.08 percent.
Randy Eugene Smith was the victim in the accident. He was a regular at the Carl’s Jr. restaurant, and he was eating breakfast in a corner booth when the SUV of Daus crashed through the building. The crash was captured on surveillance video from a nearby bank.
Daus had been attempting to pull into an ATM machine at that bank. When he couldn’t get the car into the proper positioning, he finally opened the car door to get himself in position. The car lurched forward with the door open and Daus still in the driver’s seat, traveled 361 feet and collided with the Carl’s Jr. restaurant at 33 miles per hour.
Smith was thrown across the restaurant from the impact, and died before he could be taken to the hospital. According to the Union-Tribune, Daus was wedged between the dashboard and the seat of his car.
Officers on the scene said Daus’ eyes were red and watery, and his speech blurred.
By Michael
Experts believe that the man charged in a fatal DUI from 2006 may have had a BAC four times the legal limit, NJ.com is reporting.
On April 20, 2006, a car hit two teenage girls as they walked down the side of a New Jersey road coming back from a movie theater. They were killed, and now the driver of that car faces trial in Morristown, New Jersey.
Medical experts recently testified about the state of the driver in the case, which moved into its fourth day at the time of the testimony. Their determination was that Eugene Baum, who was driving the vehicle that struck the girls, registered a blood-alcohol level of .305, which is four times the legal limit, when measurement was taken several hours after the accident.
Using a technique called “back extrapolation,” another forensic scientist estimated that Baum’s blood-alcohol level could have been as high as .376 at the time of the accident.
The girls, Athear Jafar, 16, and her cousin, Mayada Jafar, 15, were walking down the shoulder of a two-lane road after going to the movies together.
Baum allegedly struck them at dusk while driving his Kia Optima down the road’s shoulder at forty miles per hour. He did not brake, even as he struck the girls. They were terribly wounded past the point of recovery.
Baum faces charges of vehicular homicide and DUI. He could face up to 60 years in prison if he is found guilty.
Baum’s DUI defense centers around complications from treatment for his alcoholism. While he admitted that he was driving the car, he claims that a reaction between prescription medication and alcohol caused him to lose his senses.
A few weeks before the crash, Baum went to the hospital with severe symptoms caused by an attempt to stop drinking alcohol, including withdrawal. He spent three days in the hospital, and when he was discharged he was told to undergo outpatient alcohol detoxification.
Baum was prescribed a drug called Librium when he left the hospital. He claims that he didn’t know he shouldn’t have combined that drug with alcohol consumption, and that he therefore didn’t know the ill effects it would have on his body and his mind, and that he couldn’t know the harm that he might cause.
By Michael
A Florida woman’s decision to drink and drive is once again highlighting the unexpected consequences a DUI can have.
Tampa Bay Online reports a that a 39-year-old woman is accused of driving an 11-year-old child to school while under the influence of illegal drugs. According to police, she crashed her car into another car, and into a fence.
The child was in the passenger seat of the car when the incident occurred. She was not injured, though she was too upset to go to school and went home with her father.
The incident surrounds the mother, Lena K. Maki, who was driving her child to Chasco Elementary at around 9:30 in the morning when she collided with the other car. Maki, seeing what she had done, attempted to leave the scene of the accident. She drove over a curb and into one of the school’s fences in her attempt to flee.
A nearby individual ultimately pulled their car in front of Maki’s, to prevent her from leaving the scene of the accident. According to the police report, Maki also attempted to flee on foot but troopers prevented her from doing so. One sheriff saw her throw her keys into the grass, but he was able to retrieve them as they returned to the school.
When police were finally able to interact with Maki, she nodded off several times as they spoke to her. Her words were slurred, and she attempted to lean against her Jeep for support. Instead, she fell over in the grass, where she proceeded to urinate on herself.
Maki failed field sobriety tests, and it was the observation of the police that she was under the influence of a controlled substance.
The Florida Highway Patrol is reporting that Maki is charged with DUI, child neglect, leaving the scene of an accident and DUI with damage to property or person.
By Morgan Brickley
After a single-vehicle drunk driving crash that sent one man to a trauma center with severe injuries, an 18-year-old was arrested on suspicion of felony DUI.
Danielle Everman of Fountain Valley, Calif. was arrested in December after she crashed her Ford Explorer into a guard rail, severely injuring her passenger, 20-year-old Jacob Dearman.
According to a police report, Dearman was not wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident. He was rushed to a trauma center nearby and treated for his injuries.
Everman was arrested after the crash, and released on $100,000 bail. The Orange County Register reported that Everman was under the influence of alcohol when she was drove the Ford Explorer off the road and into the guard rail.
No further information is currently available about the incident.
By Morgan Brickley
A charity group based in Beverly Hills – the Lev Foundation – has a printable voucher for a $10 cab ride posted on its Web site. The vouchers will be available through the month of December.
According to an Associated Press article, the Lev Foundation was created last year by the friends and family of 25-year-old Daniel Levian after he was killed as a passenger in a drunk driving accident.
The Web site reported that about 200 vouchers have been distributed so far.
The holiday season is definitely a time of heightened DUI arrests and deaths. Taking action to prevent DUIs is commendable, and hopefully the Lev Foundation sees great success with this endeavor.
By Morgan Brickley
In Oak Harbor, Wash., a small community off the coast of Washington on Whidbey Island, two bizarre incidents occurred on the same day, both allegedly involving driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The first accident involved a 22-year-old woman who was driving her Volkswagen Beetle on Midway Boulevard, a road that travels directly toward the coast of the island.
The woman drove her Beetle straight through an intersection without stopping and “careened down an embankment and ended up in the tidelands,” according to a report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Luckily for the negligent driver, it was low tide at the time so she did not end up submerged and in possible danger for her life.
On her way into the tidelands, the Beetle crashed through a concrete bench. The bench was part of a memorial to volunteer firefighters. The car also damaged what city officials called a “lift station breather vent.”
According to Oak Harbor Police Chief Rick Wallace, the woman was arrested on suspicion of DUI. A tow truck was able to pull the car from the tidelands. The city will seek restitution for the damaged bench.
The Post-Intelligencer reported the second similar accident that occurred on the same day happened just after midnight on Sunday; a 20-year-old woman drove her car into a two-story apartment building.
“It appeared to be very minor damage,” said Chief Wallace. He did mention that it’s possible there was unseen structural damage to the property.
The driver of the car is a resident in the building that she ran into. She was arrested on suspicion of DUI and underage drinking.
Fortunately, nobody was injured in either of the incidents. When DUI is involved, the results can be far more tragic than those of this odd day of accidents in Oak Harbor.
When the news of DUI accidents is so often more severe than several strange veers off of the road, it can be nice to read about a bad situation that didn’t end up far worse.
By Morgan Brickley
A recent Pennsylvania court case further proves that driving under the influence can have a profound impact on an individual’s life.
We all know that celebrity DUI arrests make headlines, but too often it is the ordinary citizen whose life takes a wrong turn as a result of an error in judgment. Not to mention, of course, the innocent bystanders who may fall victim to an incident involving a drunk driver.
Daryl Reinhardt, a mother and active community member from Hamilton Township, Pa., recently pleaded guilty to driving her car under the influence of alcohol when she hit a man walking on the side of the road, according to the Pocono Record.
Her blood alcohol level registered at 0.129 percent. The legal limit is 0.08 percent. Reinhardt pleaded guilty to one count each of homicide by vehicle, a class three felony, and first-offense driving under the influence of alcohol, an unrated misdemeanor.
She was sentenced to 11-23 months in county jail, according to WNEP local news.
Reinhardt was driving her Jeep Liberty SUV when she swerved onto the shoulder of the road and struck the victim, Darrin Brown, who was walking home from work.
Motorists who passed the scene of the accident stopped to assist Brown, but despite their efforts, he was later pronounced dead at the Pocono Medical Center. Reinhardt’s 14-year-old child was in the car at the time of the accident.
Reinhardt was not robbing a bank or running from the police. Nothing about the story was remarkable, except one poor decision that perhaps at the time didn’t seem like a big deal.
That one decision will now cost her two years of her life spent behind bars, and the immeasurable pain caused to the victim’s family and to her own.
Teresa Hicks spoke out on behalf of Reinhardt, her friend: “Daryl Reinhardt is a soccer mom, a great neighbor, a wonderful person. She supported me through breast cancer and her own breast cancer fight, my mother passing with cancer and her mother passing with cancer.”
Reinhardt wrote a letter to Darrin Brown’s estranged wife Wendy, but Brown was not sure she was ready to forgive. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have to know she felt bad about it.”
It’s impossible to tell if that forgiveness will come, or if the damage done on that night can be somehow reconciled. In the meantime, at the scene of the accident, several balloons were tied to a street sign to mark the place where so many lives were changed in just an instant.
By Guest Attorney
A woman in Centereach, New York killed her fiancé while he was trying to protect her from drunk driving.
Newsday reports that a witness heard Louis Weiderer tell Jesenia Vega she was going to get arrested if she tried to drive in her condition. Weiderer was leaning in the car’s window arguing with her.
After she screamed at him to leave her alone, she slammed on the accelerator, dragging Weiderer to his death.
Vega was arrested and charged with DUI (DWI in New York). She is likely to be charged with some form of manslaughter.
By Editor
An Ocala, Florida man was found not guilty of DUI manslaughter and DUI with property damage. The Ocala Star-Banner reports that David Andrew Ballinger had faced up to 31 years in prison and $20,000 in fines.
The Star-Banner earlier reported that the Florida Highway Patrol had responded, in January, to a single-vehicle crash. They found Robert Lewis Wilson pinned beneath the vehicle. Witnesses told investigators they had seen a man jump out of the truck and try to help Wilson, but that the man had run away.
Five hours after the crash, police went to Ballinger’s home and drew blood. His blood alcohol level was 0.05 percent, five hours after the crash.
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement toxicologist testified Ballinger’s BAC could have been above legal limit for DUI of 0.08 percent at the time of the crash. The Star-Banner’s article does not indicate whether Ballinger argued he had drank alcohol following the crash.
It appears that convincing juries that a driver was DUI when his measured BAC was below 0.08 percent is becoming increasing difficult.
By admin
Last week, an 11-year-old girl was charged with DUI after leading police on an 100 mph chase for roughly eight miles and then flipping her vehicle in Orange Beach, Ala.
An Associated Press story detailed that the chase began around 10:30 p.m. on July 3rd when a police officer saw a car speeding along a beach highway. After the officer flicked on his lights, the driver sped up and eventually clipped another car during the chase that eventually ended when the suspect’s car rolled over.
When police officers looked into the flipped car with their guns drawn, they were shocked to see the 11-year-old girl, who later said that she was picking up her sister at a concert. Slightly injured in the crash, the girl has been charged with DUI, speeding, reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of an accident.
Due to the age of the suspect, her name was not released. Police refused to release her blood alcohol level but did say that a blood test revealed it to be greater than 0.02 percent, which is the legal limit for minors in Alabama.
No alcohol was found in the vehicle, and it is believed that the girl drank prior to driving the vehicle, which belonged to relatives.
Who would have thunk it? On the night before the Fourth of July, you would expect an 11-year-old kid to be more interested in getting his or her hands on fireworks than a car. Luckily, this girl was not seriously injured and did not hurt anyone else during this most dangerous joy ride.
