SACRAMENTO — People convicted of drunken driving in four California counties will have to test their breath for alcohol when they start their vehicles under a pilot program beginning next month.

A bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last fall requires first-time DUI offenders to install dashboard Breathalyzer devices that would prevent their car engines from starting if alcohol is detected.

The law goes into effect July 1 in Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Tulare counties. The Legislature is scheduled to evaluate the pilot program in 2015 and if it is successful, to expand the requirement statewide.

Some criminal defense lawyers and restaurant industry lobbyists fought the bill, saying the ignition lock technology should be reserved for repeat drunken drivers.

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A local lawmaker’s bill to keep repeat drunken-driving offenders off the road is stuck in committee because it is projected to cost too much and could add to the state’s prison population, according to an analysis of the law.

Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said Monday he is working with the Appropriations Committee to trim the bill’s cost to taxpayers, but he declined to discuss specific compromises he may make. An analysis of Hill’s bill puts the price tag at no less than $10 million in additional prison costs if it becomes law.

Under the current version of the proposal, judges would be given the power to permanently revoke a driver’s license after a third DUI conviction. The bill would also eliminate a 10-year “look-back” period for a driver’s record, which limits how far into a motorist’s past authorities can look when considering punishment. Hill wants a drunken driver’s lifetime record to be on the table when that person is sentenced.

“It’s just ludicrous, totally crazy, how the system currently works,” said Hill, who took on the issue after reading a series of San Mateo County Times stories on repeat DUI offenders.

The provision in Hill’s bill that would eliminate the look-back period would be the primary cause of higher prison costs, according to the analysis prepared by legislative consultant Geoff Long. It would increase the number of people eligible for felony DUI prison sentences, which could stuff more inmates into California’s already massively overcrowded prison system.

As it stands, DUI convictions from 10 or more years ago don’t count toward sentencing if a driver is found guilty of a new drunken-driving charge. The more convictions a person has in that 10-year period, the stiffer the sentence.

Long’s analysis estimated the cost of Hill’s bill to be at least $11 million but noted that it could exceed $28 million if more prison beds have to be provided to accommodate the increase in prisoners.
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On July 1, 2010, a new law will go into effect regarding for persons with a second offense DUI. The new law is located in Vehicle Code Section 13352(a)(3). It seems to be an odd law and may actually decrease the driving suspension period for second offenses in some cases.

There are two statutes that deal with DUI’s in California.  The first is Vehicle Code Section 23152(a) that basically states that is unlawful to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs.  A conviction of this section involving alcohol only after July 1, 2010 will mean a 2 year suspension with an eligibility of obtaining a restricted license after an actual 90 day suspension IF an interlock ignition device is placed in the vehicle and other standard requirements are met (SR-22 Form, reissue fee paid, and enrollment in an SB38 program).  However, if the DMV hearing is lost, there will be a one year suspension.  So, for multiple offenders, it is more important than ever to win the DMV hearing.

The second statute is Vehicle Code Section 23152(b) that states it is unlawful to drive a vehicle with .08% or more blood alcohol.  Upon a second conviction of this section, there is no driving suspension.  According to Vehicle Code Section 13352(a)(1), the suspension, if any at all, is left to the DMV hearing.  So, if the DMV hearing is won, there would be no suspension time served.  If the DMV hearing is lost, there is a one year suspension time imposed.

It is unclear whether arrests before July 1, 2010 would be eligible. It appears that the Vehicle Code Sections dealing with this issue, states that consequences apply at “conviction.” Therefore, one can argue that arrests before July 1, 2010 and convictions after would be eligible for the new law.

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SACRAMENTO — Assemblyman Jerry Hill won an early victory Tuesday for his bill to rein in drunken drivers, though critics questioned giving California judges the power to permanently revoke the licenses of DUI offenders after three convictions.

AB 1601 is meant to prevent drivers from repeatedly getting behind the wheel while over the limit. It comes in response to cases detailed in the Times involving two drivers who racked up more than two dozen drunken-driving convictions between them.

Hill, D-San Mateo, said nearly 310,000 California drivers with valid licenses have three DUI convictions on their records.

But before AB 1601 cleared its first legislative hurdle Tuesday, when the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee approved it with a 5-2 vote, representatives from the California DUI Lawyers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union questioned the impact the bill would have if passed.

Ignacio Hernandez, speaking on behalf of the California Attorneys for Justice and the California DUI Lawyers, took on a provision in the bill that would allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to review a motorist’s lifetime driving history. At present, officials are allowed to look back only on the previous 10 years of a driver’s record.

Hernandez said this part of the bill would treat a person who had two DUIs 35 years apart the same as someone who got the same number of convictions in two years. Currently, a second DUI in the 10-year window means a higher fine and a longer period of license suspension.

Hill said that under the terms of his rule, a second DUI would still be a misdemeanor.

He said judges would use their discretion when doling out punishment to drunken drivers and would likely take into account long gaps between DUI convictions.

ACLU representative Valerie Navarro said AB 1601 would be counterproductive in getting people to stop drinking. By taking away licenses for life, it would keep people from being able to drive to work.

“This bill takes us a few steps backward,” Navarro said.

Hill emphasized that taking a license away is discretionary, and judges would consider a person’s behavior, efforts to seek treatment and time between arrests. He added that driving is a privilege, not a right, and he is concerned about the rights of victims.

Sacramento-area mothers Peggy Fong and Susan Haight, whose children Kendall Lui and Brian Haight were killed in the same 2006 collision with a drunken driver, spoke in favor of Hill’s legislation.

“What about the right to live a healthy life that was taken away by a drunk driver?” Hill said.

The bill goes next to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

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A New Year’s Day accident around 3AM in the San Diego area took the life of a 6-month’s pregnant woman and her unborn child.

Authorities have charged the suspect, 40-year-old Joseph Antony Venegas, with gross vehicular manslaughter and two counts of DUI causing injury. Arraignment for Venegas has been postponed because the driver was in medical isolation; he was only arraigned last Friday on the charges.

21-year-old Elaina Luquis-Ortiz and her unborn child, Romeo Fransisco, were both killed and two others were injured. Venegas was not charged in the death of the fetus, which is possible though not uniformly enforced in the state of California. The decision on this matter is pending.

Luquis-Ortiz was traveling home with her husband from a New Year’s Eve party when they were called to assist another driver with a flat tire. She pulled her own car behind the disabled vehicle to await further assistance. At that point, a much larger Chevrolet Tahoe struck the parked car.

Luquis-Ortis died at the scene nearly immediately upon impact. The other passengers, who she was assisting, suffered serious injuries.

Source: California DUI charge for death of unborn child considered

During this past legislative session, the California Legislature passed two new laws that will affect the rights and responsibilities of those convicted of certain drunk driving offenses. Assembly Bill 91 and Senate Bill 598 both involve the use of ignition interlock devices, or IIDs.
-AB 91 creates a pilot program for select counties, such as Los Angeles County, that will require all drivers convicted of a DUI offense to install IIDs in their vehicles as a condition to receive restricted driving privileges.
-SB 598 shortens the amount of time certain repeat DUI offenders will have to wait before becoming eligible to apply for restricted California driving privileges. To receive the restricted license though, these drivers will be required to meet certain criteria, such as the installation of an IID in their vehicles.

Both laws were signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on October 11, 2009 and go into effect on July 1, 2010. More information on each new law can be found below.

If you have been charged with a drunk driving offense in California, it is important to work with an experienced DUI attorney as soon as possible to defend against the DUI charges. As the punishments for even a first time drunk driving offense keep getting steeper and steeper, no one can afford the risk of facing their charges without legal representation.

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Assemblyman Jerry Hill was shocked when he read reports that a San Mateo man was arrested for drunken driving after officers grabbing a cup of coffee watched him drive the wrong direction into the parking lot and stumble into the shop.

But Hill was even more shocked to learn that the man had been allowed back behind the wheel after eight previous DUI convictions.

So the San Mateo Democrat decided to push for a law to allow judges to permanently revoke the license of a driver with three or more DUIs.

“Today you need to hurt or kill someone before your license is revoked, and that’s ridiculous,” Hill said.

Under current law, judges can suspend, but not revoke, the licenses of repeat offenders with one or more DUIs in the previous 10 years unless they injure or kill someone in an alcohol-related accident.

Hill’s measure, which he plans to introduce Monday, would also let judges consider the defendant’s complete driving record during sentencing.

About 22 percent of the 153,000 DUI convictions reported in 2007 involved California motorists with at least one other DUI conviction in the previous 10 years, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

National Highway Traffic Administration data from 2008 show that nearly 311,000 California motorists have been convicted of at least three DUIs over the previous 25 years.

Critics say Hill’s measure won’t deter habitual drunken drivers but would put more unlicensed and uninsured drivers behind the wheel.

“You can never stop drunken driving, never,” said Joshua Dale, executive director of the California DUI Lawyers Association. “It will never end unless you get the cars to take over.”

But Hill said taking repeat offenders off the road is a logical place to start to ensure safer driving for all.

“If you receive three or more DUIs, it’s a clear indication that something’s wrong,” he said.

Source

A Burlingame man with eight DUIs still had a valid driver’s license when he got his ninth in January because he apparently never hurt or killed anyone and many of his previous convictions were outside a 10-year cutoff period used by the Department of Motor Vehicles to assess drivers, a department official explained Monday.

A Bay Area legislator called the case of 42-year-old William Simon — first detailed Monday in a Bay Area News Group article — “irresponsible and outrageous,” but a director of the California DUI Lawyers Association said habitual drunken drivers will take to the streets with or without a license.

Under California law, drunken drivers have to hurt or kill someone before their licenses can be permanently revoked, DMV spokeswoman Jan Mendoza said. Despite DUI convictions dating back to 1985, William Simon, 42, has nothing on his record indicating that he hurt or killed anyone while over the limit and behind the wheel, she said.

There is another route by which state officials can permanently strip repeat offenders of their licenses, but the driver must be deemed an alcoholic. However, drivers who lose their licenses this way can reobtain it if they prove they have broken their addiction.

“We have to leave that door open, because the condition could change,” Mendoza said.

She declined to comment on whether Simon has ever been considered for an alcoholism revocation, because addiction is a regarded

as an illness, she said, and privacy laws prohibit the release of a person’s medical records. A copy of Simon’s driving records detailing his five arrests over the past 10 years — provided by the DMV to Bay Area News Group — do not show that he was ever evaluated for an alcoholism revocation.

For drivers such as Simon, it is not easy to get a license back after multiple arrests. The cost of hiring special insurance required for those convicted of DUIs and court-ordered classes on the dangers of drunken driving serve as a deterrent for repeat offenders, many of whom never get their licenses back, officials said.

However, the DMV’s practice of evaluating drivers based solely on their record from the previous 10 years means that older convictions are not taken into account if the driver reoffends. The penalty for nine DUIs in a decade would be much more severe than the consequences of nine over the course of 23 years, as is the case with Simon. For example, when Simon got his seventh DUI in July 2004, it was treated as being his third because the others fell outside the 10-year window.

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Reporting from Sacramento -  Although he failed to win bipartisan accord on a sweeping, multibillion-dollar plan to address the state’s water problems, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday night backed down on his threat to veto hundreds of bills as punishment for legislative leaders’ inability to reach a deal.

As the midnight deadline for signing or rejecting 704 bills approached, Schwarzenegger said sufficient progress had been made in the water talks, and he planned to act on all of the bills. As negotiations concluded late Sunday, the governor had signed into law 230 bills and vetoed 221.

Those he signed included a measure intended to combat human trafficking and an anti-drunk-driving bill requiring DUI offenders in some counties to install devices in their vehicles that test blood-alcohol content before the vehicles can be started. Those he rejected included bids to force any extension of the 710 Freeway to be done underground, ban pay hikes for top administrators at public universities in bad budget years and tighten oversight on fertility clinics.

Full Story: Schwarzenegger backs away from veto threat, vows to weigh bills on merits