Articles Posted in DUI

In an appropriate Washington drug case, drug court can allow a participant to obtain treatment and have criminal charges dropped.  The drug court program requires the participant to obtain treatment, submit to drug testing, and comply with a number of other requirements.  Failure to comply with the drug court agreement can have serious consequences, so it is important for a potential participant to fully understand the requirements of the program and consider if they will be able to comply.

A defendant challenged his termination from a drug court program and subsequent convictions in a recent unpublished case.  The state charged the defendant with physical control of a vehicle while under the influence and subsequently added another charge of physical control of a vehicle while under the influence and another for driving under the influence.

The defendant was accepted into a drug court program and agreed to abstain from drugs and alcohol, attend treatment sessions and appointments, live in sober housing, and have random urinalysis testing.  He also agreed that the reports, witness statements, lab and test results, and expert testing or examinations could be sufficient for a guilty finding on the pending charges if he was terminated from the program. He also agreed to waive certain rights if terminated.  If he completed the program, the charges would be dismissed with prejudice, but if he was terminated, the court could find him guilty based on the stipulated documents.

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Generally, a Washington criminal law must be sufficiently specific to notify an ordinary person of what conduct it prohibits and provide ascertainable standards of guilt to prevent arbitrary enforcement.  In a recent case, a defendant challenged the statute prohibiting being in actual physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence after she was found sleeping in the passenger seat of her parked vehicle.

The defendant was charged with being in actual physical control of a motor vehicle while under the influence. According to the appeals court’s opinion, an officer found her sleeping in the passenger seat of her vehicle while parked with the engine running.  She moved to dismiss, arguing the law was unconstitutionally vague.

The city argued the statute was constitutional and that “actual physical control” can include someone in the passenger seat of a non-moving vehicle.

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To admit evidence of a breath test in a Washington criminal case, the state must produce prima facie evidence of certain facts, including that the tested person did not have any foreign substances in their mouth in the fifteen minutes before the test. RCW 46.61.506. The state can make this showing with evidence a check of the person’s mouth found no foreign substances or evidence that the person denied having anything in their mouth.

According to the appeals court’s unpublished opinion, the defendant was involved in a dirt bike collision.  He told the deputy on the scene that he had consumed alcohol a few hours earlier.   The deputy said the defendant had chewing tobacco in his mouth but removed it at the scene.  The deputy arrested the defendant for driving under the influence and took him to jail.

At the jail, the deputy prepared to give the defendant a breath alcohol test.  He asked if the defendant had anything in his mouth and the defendant answered no.  The deputy observed strands of tobacco in the defendant’s teeth that were not taken out before the test.

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During a Washington criminal sentencing proceeding, an offender generally cannot challenge the constitutional validity of a previous conviction.  If, however, a conviction that is “constitutionally invalid on its face,” the court cannot consider it during sentencing.  A Washington appeals court recently considered whether a defendant’s prior conviction was facially invalid under the merger doctrine.

The merger doctrine applies when the state has to prove the occurrence of an act that is defined as a separate crime to prove a particular degree of the charged crime. In such circumstances, the crimes “merge.” The merger doctrine does not apply if the legislature intended to allow multiple punishments.

If the legislature did not clearly intend to allow multiple punishment for the same act under different laws, the court determines its intent through application of the same evidence test, merger, and the independent purpose test.

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Two bills in the Washington legislature propose significant changes to Washington’s impaired driving laws.  SB 5002 proposes to lower the legal limit for a driver’s alcohol concentration. SB 5032 would extend the felony DUI lookback period and create a sentencing alternative for certain impaired driving convictions.

If passed, SB 5002 would lower the legal alcohol concentration from .08 to .05.  The change would apply to the DUI statute at RCW 46.61.502 and to the physical control statute at RCW 46.61.504.  According to SB 5002, there were 540 fatal crashes in Washington in 2021, killing more than 600 people. The bill states that there was a 31.3% increase in crashes resulting from an impaired driver between 2020 and 2021.  The bill points to a Utah law that lowered the legal alcohol concentration limit from .08 to .05 and a subsequent 19.89% drop in fatal crashes and an 18.3% drop in the fatality rate.  The bill estimates such a change in Washington would result in an 11.1% decrease in alcohol-related fatalities and between 538 and 1,790 lives saved annually.

If SB 5032 passes, a person could be convicted of felony DUI or felony physical control instead of a gross misdemeanor if they have three or more previous convictions within the past 10 years.  The current law has a lookback period of 15 years.  Similar bills proposing to expand the lookback period over the past few years have failed.

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To convict a defendant of vehicular homicide in a Washington criminal case, the state must prove that the defendant’s conduct was the proximate cause of the victim’s death.  In Washington law, the term “proximate cause” includes both actual cause and legal cause.  In a recent case, a defendant challenged his vehicular homicide conviction, alleging that there was an intervening superseding cause of the victim’s death.

According to the court’s opinion, the defendant was intoxicated when he rear-ended a vehicle at 85 m.p.h.  The defendant did not stop to assist the other driver, whose vehicle was disabled across the left and middle lanes.

A witness to the collision stopped to help.  The Good Samaritan pulled onto the right shoulder and engaged his flashers.  He crossed the freeway to help the driver and was on the phone with the 911 dispatchers when another vehicle struck the disabled vehicle.  The impact caused the disabled vehicle to strike the Good Samaritan, causing injuries that resulted in his death 12 days later.

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Defendants in Washington criminal cases often challenge the evidence used against them.  One way to challenge evidence is to challenge the validity of the search warrant used to obtain it.  When a court issues a search warrant, it must determine there is probable cause based on the facts presented to it.  This determination is the court’s responsibility and cannot be made by police officers, so there must be more than conclusory statements supporting the warrant.  The court is permitted, however, to draw reasonable inferences from the facts presented.

The defendant in a recent case challenged a search warrant.  According to the appellate court opinion, the defendant was convicted of vehicular assault after losing control of her vehicle and crashing into two other vehicles.  Subsequent blood tests found a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.13 and 4.0 nanograms of THC.  The defendant appealed her conviction, arguing a lack of probable cause to support the warrant authorizing the blood draw.

The firefighter paramedic who responded to the scene saw a female driver who was barely conscious.  He transported her to the hospital.  He identified the defendant as the driver.

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