33 Percent of DUI Offenders Get Off
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Rhode Island judges acquit roughly one-third of all DUI (driving under the influence) trials that go before them according to Craig Berke, the Director of Communications for the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
The Boston Globe recently reported that over 80-percent of all DUI trials in Massachusetts that are heard before a judge end in acquittals. Defendants have the right to a trial by jury, but they may waive that right in order to have their case heard by a judge.
GoLocalProv surveyed all the first offense cases for DUI that went to trial from 2008 through this year. There were just 56 first offense DUI cases that went to trial in Rhode Island over that three-year period. Of those 56 cases, 16 were acquitted by the judge, one was acquitted by a jury, and the remaining were found guilty by a judge.
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According to James Powderly, a prominent local attorney who has represented hundreds of clients charged with driving while under intoxication, Massachusetts is no more lenient than Rhode Island but they simply try easier cases that, in Rhode Island, would have been settled, or dismissed prior to the trial.
Powderly explained the large disparity in the acquittal rate as having little to nothing do with the leanings of each state’s judges and more to do with how cases are prosecuted in each state.
In Massachusetts, if a person is arrested for a DUI and refuses to submit to a breath test, the police officer will confiscate the motorist’s license on the spot with almost no likelihood of fighting the imposition of a suspension by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The driver then has to go answer for the DUI charge in the criminal court where prosecutors have adopted a general policy refusing to dismiss or reduce down a DUI charge, no matter how unlikely it is to convict.
“I have defended numerous DUI cases where it was clear from the facts there was no way the prosecutor could prove the charge but would not agree to dismiss the case. Instead of going forward with a time-consuming jury trial for a “slam dunk” win, I (with the consent of my client) would go jury waived in order to cut to the chase and obtain the inevitable not guilty verdict. This scenario of DUI cases that can’t be proven but aren’t being dismissed by the prosecution happens frequently in courts throughout Massachusetts with the inevitable result of judges acquiring high acquittal rates,” said Powderly.
How RI Handles DUIs
Rhode Island, however, has a completely different process to handle the prosecution of DUI charges, according to Powderly.
A motorist charged with a chemical test refusal goes to the traffic tribunal where he has the opportunity to contest the charge before an impartial judge. The DUI charge is handled in the criminal court where experienced and seasoned town prosecutors and Assistant Attorney General’s are entrusted to evaluate the cases and use appropriate discretion on which cases to seek a conviction on—a different situation than in Massachusetts, where almost every case is prosecuted.
If the DUI charge may be difficult to prove, the prosecutor will often offer a deal that allows the defendant to plead guilty to the chemical test refusal charge in exchange for a dismissal or reduction of the DUI charge. With the discretion to appropriately resolve the borderline or difficult to prove cases, Rhode Island prosecutors are able to focus their efforts on achieving convictions for the cases with strong evidence, said Powderly.
“By weeding out the slam dunk wins for the defendant at the pre-trial stage, judges are left to preside over serious trials with the inevitable result of higher conviction rates then their Massachusetts counterparts,” said Powderly.
MADD: Not Surprised By Acquittal Numbers
Gabrielle Abate, the Executive Director for the Rhode Island Chapter of Mother Against Drunk Driver (MADD), said she was alarmed by the high number acquittals in Massachusetts, and wasn’t entirely thrilled with the 33-percent acquittal rate in Rhode Island either.
“I’m not surprised though,” said Abate.
Abate understood and agreed with Powderly’s assessment of the discrepancies between the judicial processes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and she acknowledged that pleading out some of the DUI cases is a prudent move.
“I’ve been told by prosecutors that drunk driving charges are in many instances harder to prove than homicide cases.
But Abate said she’d prefer to see the plea bargains in Rhode Island have more stringent sentencing, especially for instances where the DUI charges involved serious injury to others. She cited high profile cases where she thought the perpetrators received sentences that were too lenient.
In any event, Abate said MADD is trying to create a “court monitoring” system, to better monitor statistics regarding DUI charges.
We have been trying to get some funding so that we can do a court monitoring program. We think that the information needs to be more readily available and easier for the public to view,” said Abate.
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