Posted on 08/08/2006 8:57:11 AM PDT by Puppage
MINEOLA, N.Y. -- A district attorney elected last fall on a promise to limit plea bargains is being sued by a defense attorney who claims the prosecutor's new policies on DWI cases are unconstitutional.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said she is not backing away from the changes, which include the creation of a separate courtroom for DWI cases. She also wants permanent criminal records for first-time offenders convicted of having a blood-alcohol level of 0.13 percent or more. The legal limit in the state is 0.08 percent.
Rice has also stiffened her office's approach to plea deals, insisting she has the final word on sentences, not the judge.
Attorney Thomas Liotti filed a show-cause Monday order for his client -- a St. John's University student charged in May with misdemeanor drunken driving -- claiming the student will not be treated fairly under Rice's policies.
Rice, however, dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous. "I'm actually quite proud of the fact that drunk drivers are treated more harshly here in Nassau County than anywhere else in the state," she said. She said in the past, first time DWI offenders were given the equivalent of a traffic ticket.
"That is why drunk driving is an epidemic in Nassau County," she said. "I will stand with the victims of drunk driving, with the families of the victims of drunk driving who say 'enough is enough.'
Sounds like someone is drunk with power. Didn't know the DA could legislate.
If only a Prosecutor would also take such a stance against plea-bargains by felons in all cases (murder, assault, rape, etc.), and the Liberal Judges would mete out sentences that actually WERE punitive (instead of short sentences, probation, etc.) as a DETERENT, criminals would know they can't get a lawyer to always get them off lightly on charges.
Why not?We have a Judiciary that"legislates"from the bench!
It doesn't sound like the DA is legislating. Those penalties are in the law. The DA has just decided to stop reducing drunk driving cases to failure to use a turn signal. Now whether this new policy will consume so much of the DA's time and budget that he has to plea down rapists and murders to trespassing counts remains to be seen.
Another dumb article. What are the grounds for the defense attorney's claims? Do you even have to have a 5th grade education to be a TV news "reporter" these days?
It is a traffic ticket.
In the event of an accident, additional charges can be levied.
The DA has full authority to seek lesser punishments than the law provides for. But the DA equally has the authority to refuse to do so. I don't see where she's acting out of her lawful authority.
Apparently, she doesn't understand the difference between "drunk driving" and "driving with a BAL in excess of the legal limit." I suspect the number of "drunk drivers" is no different now than 20 or 30 years ago, but the number of people driving with a BAL in excess of the legal limit has skyrocketed if only because the nanny state has lowered the limit to the point that gargling with mouthwash will get you busted.
There are nowhere near enough prosecutors, judges and Public Defenders to handle the cases if there wasn't plea bargaining. What's the big deal you ask? Well everyone has a right to a speedy trial. That in Pennyslvania for example, requires trial within 365 days if out on bail and 6 months if incarcerated. Alot more criminals would be getting off for failure to get a speedy trial. Additionally think of all the people needed for jury selection. Plea bargins are the greese that keeps the wheels of justice moving.
To give you a real world example where no juries are involved I was recently in York County for Summary Appeal (Traffic ticket) day. There were approximately 40 cases. 10% didn't show up and had their appeals dismissed. 10% had the police officer fail to show and therefore they were found not guilty. 75% pled guilty to reduced offenses. 5% or 2 people went to trial it took 45 minutes for the first trial and half an hour for the second. Even taking the shorter figure that translates to 16 hours it would have required to try all of the cases that weren't automatic wins or losses for failure to appear.
By not plea bargining each dui goes from 15 minutes of Court time to at least a day. Trust me no plea bargins would be great for my business, but would be really bad for society.
16,694 lives per year is just not worth anyone's time or money.
somebody's = somebodies ?????
365 days for speedy trial? We have a 120 day rule in Alaska if out on bail. I agree. With no plea bargains there would be a lot more judicial time spent on these cases, but in my courtroom experience I think the end result would simply be the majority pleading out at arraignment and doing the mandatory 72 hrs on a first offense. A 3rd offense (within 10 years) would be a felony here. Those would go to trial.
There should be different standards for denying plea bargains, i.e. someone stopped for erratic/reckless driving, fleeing arrest, causing an accident etc., vs someone (a first-time offender) who is pulled over at a checkpoint or without other probable cause. Repeat checkpoint violations, maybe...
This is an outrageous lie.
In Pa the sentencing guideline on a first offense DUI would be the minimum anyways. What does the defendant have to lose by going to trial and possibly getting off? There are over 40,000 DUI arrests in Pa a year. At 1 day per trial and 200 trial days a year that works out to 200 judges, 200 prosecutors, 200 court reporters, 200 baliffs and 200 PDs. Call it $100k for the judges, 75k for the Da's and PDs 50k for the Ct. reporters and Baliffs and you get $70 million dollars extra just to do the DUI cases. This does not include the 480,000 people who will sit on the juries and get paid there $5 day and the 480,000 who are in the jury pool but can't get selected.
Note the last paragraph, and in particular, the last sentence. This would seem to make the statistics below a little misleading since we tend to think that alcohol-related crashes are caused by drunk drivers. But if a sober driver kills an alcohol-impaired pedestrian, it's still considered an alcohol-related crash. Does this invalidate the drunk driving statistics below? No. The statistics reveal that most fatal alcohol-related crashes do indeed involve drunk drivers and far fewer (12%) of these fatalities involve intoxicated pedestrians or "pedalcyclists".
Of the 16,694 people who died in alcohol-related crashes in 2004, 8256 (57%) were killed in crashes where the driver had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 g/dL or higher. The legal limit for BAC is currently .08 in all states in the US.
Simply google dui deaths per year and you will see! Apology accepted
From this link:
Q: IS IT POSSIBLE TO "PLEA BARGAIN" TO AVOID A CONVICTION FOR DRINKING AND DRIVING?
A: No, the law prohibits a plea to a non-alcohol or drug-related violation.
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