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.