It appears that the DUI patrol actually resulted in many arrests for things other than DUI. Does this mean that the police were running background checks even on people who exhibited no signs or symptoms of alcohol consumption or impairment?

DUI patrol's busy night - The Reporter: "A DUI saturation patrol conducted by the Vacaville Police Department on Friday netted multiple arrests, police said.

They included the arrest of one person on suspicion of DUI and narcotics, another for violation of parole, a third arrest on narcotics charges and a fourth arrest for an individual with outstanding warrants. Four additional arrests were made for driving without a license.

In all, police said, seven vehicles were towed and 30 citations were issued."

DUI saturation patrols are a feel good measure that wastes resourced and does little good for removing DUI drivers from the roads as compared to regular patrols.

Man Charged with Murder & Drunk Driving in MLB Pitcher's Death | Cleveland Leader: "According to the district attorney's office, Gallo was driving a minivan at 65mph in a 35mph zone around 12:35am Thursday in Fullerton, CA. He was on probation and his license had been suspended after a previous DUI charge. Police say he ran a red light and hit the car that Adenhart was in, killing the pitcher, 20-year-old California State University student Courtney Stewart and law student Henry Pearson, 25."

Is justice the same when a prosecutor is a defendant as it is when a DUI prosecutor is just a prosecutor?

According the the DA in the story below, the reckless driving deal that this Nevada prosecutor took after his California DUI arrest was just business as usual, the same deal would be offered to anybody else.

Now before we DUI defense lawyers get our panties all up in a bunch, let's consider what we do every time we negotiate a case for one of our clients with a prosecutor. More on that later. First the article, quoted in full:

Calif. Prosecutor Drops DUI Charges Against Nevada Prosecutor | NBC Los Angeles: "A Nevada prosecutor pleads guilty to reckless driving and won't be prosecuted for DUI in connection with two crashes in a six-hour span, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett crashed two cars within six hours on the same stretch of California highway in June 2008. He failed an alcohol breath test at the scene of the second crash.

In September, Beckett pleaded not guilty to DUI charges.

But he changed his plea after the DUI charges were dropped, pleading guilty instead to reckless driving. As part of the plea, he is also required to complete a class on alcohol and automobiles.

Beckett will not be prosecuted for drunken driving under the plea deal entered in Barstow, Calif., Superior Court on Friday.

In the first crash, which happened early afternoon, Beckett totaled the county-issued SUV he was driving on California Route 127, south of Shoshone, Calif. No other vehicles were involved.

After riding home in a tow truck, Beckett went out to the same highway in his own van, crashing six hours later.

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After failing a breath test for alcohol at the scene, Beckett was arrested, taken to Baker, Calif., and released into the custody of a friend, according to LVRJ.com.

San Bernardino County deputy district attorney Joel Buckingham said the plea agreement was not out of the ordinary and Beckett did not get any special consideration."

Now, back to what DUI defense lawyers do when they plea bargain a case.

1. First we present the facts and explain to the prosecutor why they favor our client.

2. If the facts don't favor our clients, then we present our legal theories.

3. If our legal theories are no good, then we present our client as a human being. We bring out the good. We hide or minimize the bad. "This client is an upstanding citizen, a doctor," we say. "This client just got home from Iraq where he took two bullets and rescued 5 babies from certain doom." We sell our clients value to society, and we emphasize that their behavior is more negligent than criminal, that they are guilty perhaps, but never condemnable.

4. If none of the above work, then some of us beg. Some of us whine. Some of us threaten litigation, and some of us vow to rid the planet of several trees as we explain to the judge in many motions what is wrong with the case.

For us DUI defense lawyers, if any of the above tactics work, then we are successful. It really does not matter how we got there if we got the client a good result, as long as we didn't violate the ethical rules.

So, for defense attorneys who are inclined to say that this is favoritism and not justice, think of the example it sets. Now, for California DUI lawyers practicing in San Bernardino County, they can cite this example.

This was a good result for a California DUI defendant who just happened to be a prosecutor. I congratulate him and hope that he has the good sense to learn from this not just one, but at least two lessons:

Lesson 1: Don't drive drunk. Pretty basic, huh?

Lesson 2: Perhaps this ordeal will cause him to approach people he prosecutes with greater compassion, and approach justice with a people based perspective. Perhaps he will set a tone for younger prosecutors in his office to follow.

Perhaps.

Placer County: More than 99 percent of DUI arrests end up in convictions | SierraSun.com: "PLACER COUNTY — If you’ve been drinking, you don’t want to get behind the wheel in Placer County.

A recent report from the California Department of Motor Vehicles indicates that the Placer County District Attorney’s Office has the highest conviction rate of drunken or impaired drivers in the state.

Placer’s DUI conviction rate is 99.2 percent. The state average is 79.4 percent.

Only two other counties in California had conviction rates of 90 percent or higher. These included Shasta at 96.9 percent and Santa Barbara at 92 percent.

The statistics are based on DUI arrests made in 2006 and their subsequent prosecutions through the end of the 2007 year.

Placer County’s rating marked the fourth consecutive year in which the county had a DUI conviction record of 90 percent or higher.

Capt. Rick Ward, commander of the California Highway Patrol’s Auburn office, said the No. 1 rating by Placer County came as no surprise to him.

‘I’ve worked up and down the state and I can say that the Placer County District Attorney’s Office is one of the hardest-working agencies toward achieving justice that I’ve seen,’ Ward said. ‘This county lets people know that if you come here and are violating DUI laws, you will be held accountable.’

Steve Dragland, supervising deputy district attorney for Placer County, credited the nearly perfect score to an aggressive approach by his prosecutors and by the local law enforcement agencies that made the DUI arrests.

The Department of Motor Vehicles report shows that Placer County convicted 2,257 motorists on misdemeanor DUI charges and 76 others on felony DUI charges. Another 182 drivers who were arrested on suspicion of drunken driving were eventually convicted of reckless driving."

Now, the questions is why? It would be interesting to know how many of these Placer County California DUI cases actually went to trial, and how many pled out. Could it be that in the smaller counties there are fewer DUI attorneys who are willing to take cases to trial? Is there such a grave threat of extreme penalties if a case goes to trial? Or are prosecutors actually offering better deals than in other California DUI cases?

Notice that in the article it says that two other counties in California, Shasta and Santa Barbara have a DUI conviction rate above 90 percent.

Ledger-Dispatch.com | DUI suspect loses battle with deputy: "An Amador County sheriff's deputy found himself in a minor scuffle Sunday afternoon with a belligerent drunk driving suspect.

The tussle led to a parking lot standoff and then a pair of handcuffs clicking on the furious man in the cold, snowy air.

The altercation began after the deputy, acting on a tip, began following the suspect's car to see if he was driving under the influence. As the suspect's red sedan passed through Pioneer, the deputy threw his lights on. Pulling into the parking lot near the Pioneer Resort Hotel, the suspect ignored the deputy's orders to stay in his car and climbed out for a confrontation. The deputy called for backup assistance, fearing the driver's passenger might also get involved. Officers from the sheriff's office, the California Highway Patrol and U.S. Forest Service arrived on scene.

Based on eye witness accounts, the suspect was threatening and aggressive until he was physically subdued by the initial deputy who pulled him over. The driver sustained cuts to his hand during the scuffle. An assortment of hard liquor was discovered in the man's vehicle as he was being led away to a patrol unit. The suspect faces a list of charges, including assault on a peace"

Missing from the article is any information that the police actually had reasonable grounds to make the stop. Learn more about California DUI law and Amador County drunk driving cases.

Just because somebody calls in a tip to police officers that somebody is driving drunk doesn't mean that the police have a legal right to stop that person without more particular knowledge.

The California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District, Division Three for Los Angeles County filed an opinion on February 20, 2009 in the case of The People v. Martinez. This California DUI and vehicular manslaughter opinion discusses the issues of:

1. Causation; and
2. Lesser included offenses.

The lesser included offense issue apparently came down to who was named as a victim in what charge.

Interesting read. For more in-depth analysis, see also DUI news.

The California Court of Appeals has ruled that, essentially, a judge did not harm a DUI defendant’s case by refusing to accept a plea of guilty. This case has not been officially published in California.

The Cite: Court of Appeal, Sixth District, California. The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Gabriel COLIN, Defendant and Appellant. No. H032202. (Santa Cruz County Super. Ct. No. F14255). Nov. 12, 2008.

Excerpts from the opinion:

Milligan asked the city court on March 20, 2007, to enter a guilty plea to the DUI and other related citations. The city court informed Milligan that it wished to confer with counsel for the State, who was out of the office that day, before it accepted Milligan's plea. The State moved to dismiss the DUI and related citations approximately a week later. The city court granted the State's motion over Milligan's objections.

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The court in Peplow determined that Montana statutes confer upon a defendant the right to plead guilty to the crime charged "before or during trial," pursuant to § 46-16-105, MCA. Thus, the court concluded that the district court had erred in refusing to accept Peplow's guilty pleas to several pending charges at the beginning of the trial. Peplow, ¶ 43. This conclusion did not end the inquiry. The Court proceeded to address whether the district court's error in denying Peplow his statutory right to plead guilty prejudiced Peplow's defense to the other pending charges. Peplow, ¶¶ 46-56. The Court deemed that the error constituted a type of trial error susceptible to harmless error analysis. Peplow, ¶ 46.

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The court in Peplow held that the district court's refusal to accept his guilty plea prejudiced his defense. Peplow, ¶ 56. Peplow attempted to enter his guilty plea to two of his five charges pending in the district court. Peplow, ¶ 12. The jury ultimately found Peplow guilty on all charges. Peplow, ¶ 16. Here, by contrast the State moved to dismiss the DUI charge against Milligan in city court. The city court granted the motion and dismissed the DUI charges. Milligan fails to explain how the city court's refusal to accept his guilty plea to the DUI charges prejudiced him with respect to the final resolution of the DUI charges in light of the fact that the city court dismissed the DUI charges. We can see no prejudice under these circumstances and deem harmless any error that the city court may have committed in denying Milligan his statutory right to plead guilty to the DUI charges.

Analysis and Opinion:  There are plenty of reasons why a DUI defendant would want to plead guilty, and why the prosecutor may not want that to happen. The most obvious reason is so that double jeopardy attaches and the defendant can’t be tried again.

Some states have cases or statutes designed to thwart the double jeopardy angle when a defendant pleads guilty while hiding information such as the existence of an allegeable prior conviction. Nevertheless, a plea of guilty often times shuts down any inquiry that the prosecution may make into the defendant’s history.

Another reason that a DUI defendant might want to plead guilty to a charge is so that a jury would not hear about it when deciding the more serious counts in a multi-charge prosecution. For example, if a person is pulled over for misdemeanor DUI and it is discovered that he has a trunk full of drugs, he may plead to the less serious DUI to try to prevent the jury from hearing that he was also drunk when it decides his fate on the felony drug charges.

A defendant’s right to plead either guilty or not-guilty is sacred. It is my strong belief that if the State brings criminal charges against a citizen, the State should be ready with all of the information. In other words, if the prosecutor alleges DUI, they should hold off filing the charges until they ascertain whether prior DUI convictions exist. If they exist, then allege them immediately. If not, don’t whine when a defendant tries to plead guilty that more time is needed to investigate the person’s criminal history.