By Guest Attorney
Lea Anna Cooper suggests, on the American Chronicle Web site, that Kiefer Sutherland may face double jeopardy when tried for his recent DUI charges. Her claim of double jeopardy is simply a misunderstanding of DUI law.
Sutherland, star of the controversial hit show “24,” was arrested in September and charged with driving with a blood alcohol level (BAC) above 0.08 percent and driving under the influence.
Cooper asserts that the two charges against Sutherland would amount to “double jeopardy.” Strangely, Cooper also reprints portions of a California criminal case that explains how she misunderstands DUI law, People v. Cosko, 152 Cal. App. 3d 54, 199 Cal. Rptr. 289 (1984).
As Cosko explains, Sutherland has been charged with two crimes; one is a “lesser included offense” of the other. In other words, the charge of driving with a BAC above 0.08 percent includes the elements of the misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence plus the element of having a blood alcohol level above 0.08 percent.
Cosko points out that a prosecutor has the right to charge a defendant with a crime and lesser included offenses to assure that she gets a conviction. A court cannot, however, actually convict a defendant of both the charged offense and the lesser included offenses.
Sutherland does actually face revocation of his probation stemming from his plea to driving under the influence in 2004. He was sentenced to 60 months probation and could now face up to 18 months in jail for violating his probation. However, it is very unlikely he will see any more than the 96 hours in jail required under California DUI law.
By Guest Attorney
Kiefer Sutherland, star of the controversial hit show ‘24’, faces up to 18 months in prison after being charged with DUI and violating his probation from a 2004 DUI.
The L.A. Times reports that Sutherland was arrested for driving with a blood alcohol level (BAC) over the 0.08 percent legal limit for DUI in California. A Los Angeles City Attorney’s spokesman said prosecutors would seek to revoke Sutherland’s probation stemming from his 2004 plea to DUI.
The actor faces a year in jail if convicted on this new DUI charge plus six months for violating his probation. At the least, if convicted under California DUI law, Sutherland would have to serve a minimum of 96 hours in jail.
By Editor
A mother from Fallbrook, California pled guilty to felony child endangerment for allowing her 6-year-old son to ride with her drunk husband.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Rosa Carachure’s husband rolled their SUV, killing her son. She was seriously injured in the crash.
Shortly after burying her son, Carachure was shocked when police charged her with a felony. Authorities accused her of knowing her husband was too drunk to drive. She could now get a year in jail.
Jose Mendoza, the father, was charged with DUI manslaughter. He could get six years in prison.
Mendoza and his wife were arguing over his drunk driving when he purposefully swerved the vehicle to show her he could drive. The SUV rolled and the child, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected. Two other children were uninjured.
Some prosecutors can certainly be vindictive. Carachure’s attorney said she’s been punished enough.
By Editor
Nicole Richie recently told Paris Hilton she was scared to death about going to jail for a California DUI arrest from last December. Richie had confessed to officers that she was taking the pain killer Vicodin and had smoked marijuana. The former heroin addict has a previous DUI conviction from 2002. If she is convicted of a repeat DUI offense, she could face a mandatory jail sentence of five days.
Paris Hilton recently pled guilty to reckless driving in a plea bargain for her own DUI. Hilton’s lawyer is also representing Richie.
By Editor
Fresno California police ticketed eight people for driving away from their DUI hearings. Eighteen drivers, just convicted of DUI, were followed by the Fresno Eliminate Alcohol Re-Offender Team after having their driver’s licenses suspended or revoked. Ten had rides waiting for them or got on the bus, eight got in their cars and drove away. The eight were cited for driving on a suspended or revoked license following a DUI conviction and their cars were impounded.
The Eliminate Alcohol Re-Offender Team was created in 2004 to hunt down “the worst of the worst serial DUI offenders.”
By Editor
Fresno California police are using roadblocks, stakeouts, night-vision goggles, satellite tracking devices, and video cameras to track and arrest drivers for DUI. Police officers are using night-vision goggles and satellite tracking devices to keep track of drivers already convicted of serious DUI offenses. The terms of parole for some drivers convicted of DUI allow police to enter their homes at any time to see if they’ve drinking and they can be arrested if police find alcohol in the home.
Fresno police say they are permitted to secretly plant GPS devices by the DUI offender’s parole agreement. The ACLU finds such secret surveillance troubling.
By Editor
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that California will provide nearly $4 million in funding grants to 97 law enforcement agencies for holiday DUI checkpoints throughout the state. California Highway Patrol Commissioner, Mike Brown, said “We’ll be out in full force. We’ll be doing sobriety check points. We’ll be doing saturation patrols to get that drunk driver off the road and maybe save a life.”
According to State officials, last year 1,574 people were killed and 30,810 were injured in California from alcohol related crashes. Authorities say this is nearly an eight percent increase from the number of alcohol related fatalities in 2004.
By Editor
The California Highway Patrol reported that as of Sunday afternoon, only one person had died on Riverside and San Diego County roads around Riverside California over the Thanksgiving weekend. Last year, five people died in traffic accidents during the holiday. As of 6 a.m. Sunday, police in San Diego County had made 129 DUI arrests, 14 more than last year. A San Diego County CHP officer said “You can probably attribute the amount of arrests going up (to the lower number of fatalities). More people may be getting arrested before they can crash.”
Throughout California, the number of traffic fatalities over the Thanksgiving weekend decreased to 38 this year, 14 fewer than last year. CHP officers arrested 1,537 for DUI this year, compared with 1,418 last year.
By Editor
A Chico California women charged with DUI and driving the wrong way down a one-way street was tried at Las Plumas High School. She had agreed to participate in a California program where DUI trials are held at high schools with students acting as mock juries. This was the first of seven trials to be held at California high schools this year. The presiding judge delivered the real verdict of guilty and sentenced the woman to three years probation, a $1,735 fine, and 96 hours in the county jail. The jail time was suspended due to her participation in the program.
The evidence presented was complete. The prosecution presented the police officer’s reason for the stop, results of road-side tests, two breath tests, expert testimony regarding the reliability of the breathalyzer tests and the physical affects of excess alcohol consumption. The woman had failed more than one of the road-side tests and her breath tests showed a minimum of 0.16 BAC. The woman’s defense attorney attempted to show a reasonable doubt, but both the mock jury and the judge found her guilty of DUI.
The presiding judge said most DUI cases are resolved with pleas or dismissed. Out of 1,500 DUI cases in the County last year, only three had gone to trial. The Chico area has seen a 15 percent increase in DUI cases this past year. Butte County now sees a DUI arrest for every 100 drivers in the County each year.
The program will continue with trials at different high schools. An official involved in the program said that they “want students to be more aware of the consequences of driving under the influence and use the knowledge they get today to save people’s lives.”
By Editor
While riding his bicycle in Santa Rosa California a bicyclist was struck by a car and suffered multiple broken bones and a cut on the back of his head. Then, while he was being treated for his injuries at the hospital, he was arrested on suspicion of DUI, driving his bicycle drunk.
A police officer said that it was unclear whether the bicylist was riding in the road lane or on the shoulder, both of which would be legal in Santa Rosa. The automobile driver was not cited in the accident.
By Guest Attorney
Police in Fresno, California have begun an aggressive crackdown on DUI, raising privacy issues among the City’s bar patrons. Undercover police officers stake out bar parking lots at closing time and call ahead to marked squad cars when they observe a likely drunk driver. Fresno Police have even gone so far as secretly planting GPS tracking devices on vehicles owned by convicted drunken drivers.
By Tiffany Sanders, ESQ.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law lats ewek that makes it a crime for a driver under the age of 21 to operate a motor vehicle with a BAC of .01 or greater. Currently, underage drivers with alcohol in their systems are reported to the DMV and have their vehicles briefly impounded. Under the new zero tolerance law, effective January 1, these drivers will face criminal charges.
By Tiffany Sanders, ESQ.
A pending civil case in California may determine whether third parties can be held liable for the consequences of a DUI accident.
The case, filed on behalf of the family of a bicyclist killed by a drunk driver, names the driver’s wife and brother.
The plaintiff’s attorney argues that by protecting the drunk driver’s property, providing him with automobile insurance, purchasing a vehicle for him and serving him alcohol after prior DUI arrests, the driver’s wife and brother took “joint action in support of a wrongful act.”
If the plaintiff prevails, the case will undoubtedly be appealed, but the ultimate outcome could open–or close–the door to a host of claims against those providing aid to drunk drivers.
By Tiffany Sanders, ESQ.
This weekend, California began installing permanent signs asking motorists to call 911 if they witnessed a drunk driver on the road.
However, many concerns have already arisen about the wisdom and safety of the DUI program, which as a practical matter requires motorists to place cell phone calls while driving in the vicinity of an impaired driver.
Pulling off the road to place the call would clearly be safer than having an impaired driver and a distracted driver sharing road space, but early anecdotal evidence suggests that it takes several minutes for police to respond to a 911 call reporting a drunk driver. The offending vehicle will likely be lost if the caller does not continue to follow.