LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said he stands behind his deputies.

He supports their arrest of commission Chairman Charles Bannister and charging him with an ORANGE COUNTY DUI.

“Most police officers, if somebody blew a 0.0 on a Breathalyzer, would back off and dismiss the criminal charges. I think, for Mr. Bannister, this case is taking an extra step,” said former Dekalb County prosecutor J. Tom Morgan.

Morgan questions the sheriff’s case against Bannister.

“If you got a failure to have a video and you got a 0.0 on a Breathalyzer, I’m not sure why this guy (Bannister) was arrested,” said Morgan.

Police said Bannister passed three Breathalyzer tests and the arresting officer does not have video of the field sobriety test he gave Bannister.

Police said Bannister failed those physical coordination tests.

“The DUI field sobriety test is unfortunately a joke,” said Morgan.

Morgan said it could seem like Bannister was set up, but he said that would not be against the law.

Police said Bannister was at Cafe Hot Wings in Lilburn Monday, when a customer called an off-duty sheriff’s deputy and said Bannister was there, in his county vehicle and drinking.

That off-duty deputy then called a deputy who was working.

The deputy waited for Bannister to drive off, then he stopped Bannister for changing lanes without using his signal.

“Well, unfortunately for Mr. Bannister because he’s a public official, he can be subjected to that kind of scrutiny. This is not the way a case is typically handled, but it’s not against the law either,” said Morgan.

Bannister said he will be exonerated.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations is testing Bannister blood to see if he had alcohol in his body the night he was arrested.

A Kendall County jury today convicted an Aurora woman of causing the deaths of five teens in a 2007 DUI-related car crash.

The guilty verdict reached after more than 11 hours of deliberation means 26-year-old Sandra Vasquez faces up to 28 years in prison when she is sentenced later this year for aggravated DUI and reckless homicide.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Vasquez was immediately taken into custody.

The Oswego teens were killed early on Feb. 11, 2007 when Vasquez’s car veered off Route 31 in the far western suburb and struck a utility pole.

Vasquez was giving eight teens from the Oswego area a ride home following a party in nearby Boulder Hill when the deadly 2:20 a.m. crash occurred.

Killed in the crash were Katherine Merkel, 14; Jessica Nutoni, 15; James McGee, 14; Tiffany Urso, 16; and Matthew Frank, 17. Vasquez, the mother of two young children, and three other teens riding in her car were badly injured.

Kendall County prosecutors contended Vasquez’s blood-alcohol level was above the .08 legal limit at the time of the crash and that she was driving more than 25 miles over the speed limit when she lost control of her car.

Tests on blood taken from Vasquez in the hospital after the crash showed her blood-alcohol level to be .105.

But a DUI defense attorney questioned the accuracy of the blood tests, contending Vasquez’s liver was damaged in the crash, affecting the results.

Vasquez testified that she had several drinks the night of the crash, but lost control of the car after being distracted by one of her passengers kicking the back of her seat. When she turned her attention back to the road, she had to swerve suddenly to avoid an oncoming car and veered off the road, Vasquez testified.

On Tuesday, their first day of deliberation, jurors also watched a videotaped interview police conducted with Vasquez in the hospital the day of the crash.

LAKE FOREST – A 40-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of DUI after a deputy noticed him weaving while riding a bike and going the wrong way in a crosswalk, police said.

Tito Pablo Alcanara-Carrasaco was arrested at 11:25 p.m. Saturday after a deputy working a DUI special enforcement patrol noticed Alcanara-Carrasaco on a mountain bike riding southbound in a crosswalk on the northbound side of Muirlands Boulevard at El Toro Road.

Bicyclists are legally required to follow the same traffic laws as motorists.

The deputy noticed he was riding slowly and was heading in the wrong direction in the crosswalk, said Deputy Richard Nelson.

Alcanara- Carrasaco was also weaving and had a hard time keeping his bike straight, Nelson said. He also had no light. He was stopped and was being asked for ID when the deputy noticed a strong smell of alcohol, blood shot and watery eyes and an unsteady gait.

The deputy also found a cold bottle of Tecate in the man’s jacket pocket.

An alcohol breath test revealed Alcanara-Carrasaco was close to double the legal blood-alcohol limit.

Alcanara-Carrasaco was taken to Orange County Jail where he was cited and released.

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – The 2-year-old sat, slumped, trapped with her seriously injured parents in the mangled car.

Moments earlier, the family had been rear-ended by a teenage driver at an intersection in Mission Viejo.

Steve Concialdi, firefighter and paramedic, and founder of Friends Against Drinking and Driving (FADD), shows photographs from past drunk driving demonstrations, that are performed to educate kids how dangerous DUI can be.

 

Steve Concialdi, a paramedic with the Orange County Fire Authority, took this in. Then, as he and others started tending to the injured, he had a thought:

I hope they make it.

As he saw the young driver – drunk – sitting on the curb, tearfully declaring how bad he felt about causing the crash, Concialdi had another thought:

I wish all teenagers could see this.

Back then, in 1989, Concialdi was a teenager, too – just 19 and a recent hire of the Orange County Fire Department, the predecessor agency of the Orange County Fire Authority. And that crash was among the first of many scenes of carnage Concialdi witnessed on the job.

But the image of the young drunk driver, his life forever changed, inspired Concialdi to develop a program that recently earned him recognition as a person making a positive difference in Orange County.

•••

His longtime crusade actually began in high school.

Concialdi had a senior project due at Mater Dei High School.

At the time, he was a Fire Explorer – a program that teaches young people about fire safety careers — and he’d taken a class in emergency medicine at Saddleback College.

So, he already had a taste for disasters, and for helping people. And, even earlier than that, he’d been interested in helping people in life-or-death situations. His favorite show as a young child was “Emergency!”

Having a father who was a reserve deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department only spurred his interest more – as did witnessing a bad car crash the summer before his final year at Mater Dei.

So, for his senior project, Concialdi contacted the California Highway Patrol and asked for photos of crash scenes.

He developed a slide show that graphically illustrated the dangers of driving recklessly or impaired. The often grisly scenes were meant to shock kids into staying sober, and he figures that the images got through to at least some of the students.

Later, during his time at Santa Ana College, where he studied fire science, the CHP and other agencies would send him material – and his slide show expanded.

But soon after he arrived at the scene of the crash with the toddler and her parents, Concialdi had another idea: expand his slide-show into a three-D exhibit. He’d create full-blown mock DUI crashes – complete with crashed cars and actors as victims and buckets of fake blood – and he’d take those scenes to high school parking lots.

Thus was born Friends Against Drinking and Driving.

•••

The paramedic squawks the grim facts over the radio:

There’s been a two-car traffic collision. Two teens are in critical condition and two others have moderate injuries.

Two others at the scene are already dead.

That was a real crash, in San Juan Capistrano, in 1989.

Concialdi bases his mock DUI presentations on that deadly collision, tailoring the facts to the high school he’s visiting.

He uses student actors and volunteer firefighters, law enforcement officers and other officials to pull off the realistic crash scenes. The teen drivers and victims usually wear formal attire, as they would to a winter formal or prom.

A narrator booms out details of the crash over a wireless microphone.

The presentations last about 45 minutes. They end with the “bodies” being covered by coroner investigators, and the impaired driver being hauled away in handcuffs.

“It’s emotional,” Concialdi says, noting that a kid playing a witness once started to hyperventilate.

“The moms who watch it usually get worked up.”

Concialdi staged his first mock DUI presentation at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in 1991, two years after he saw the toddler and her parents.

This April, at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, FADD staged its 70th demonstration.

•••

For his efforts in trying to save young lives by discouraging drinking and driving, Concialdi, in March, was named the first recipient of The Heart & Soul Award.

The award was created by, of all businesses, a mortuary.

Neil O’Connor, chief executive of O’Connor Mortuary in Laguna Hills, says he wanted to highlight positive individuals and experiences in the community.

“There are so many great people doing good works who are known in their own circles, but not much beyond that,” O’Connor says.

“Also, the only time you usually read about the funeral home industry is when somebody does something wrong. But this award really is about spotlighting the good work being done in the community.”

Concialdi will be recognized at a ceremony Tuesday night along with three other winners of the Heart & Soul Award, which is handed out monthly.

Sharon Davis, a clinical research nurse who lives in Laguna Woods, was selected in April for her contributions to oncology May’s recipient was James Pribram, of Laguna Beach, honored for improving water quality and protecting endangered reefs and wildlife along Orange County’s coastlines. And June’s winner was San Juan Capistrano resident Larry Kramer, 70, a retired U.S. Navy submarine commander tapped for his service to the country and relentless dedication to the local community.

O’Connor invites the public to make nominations the Heart & Soul Award. Recipients receive plaques and a donation in their name to their favorite charity.

“I don’t need any fame or glory,” says Concialdi, 39, a married father of three who lives in Trabuco Canyon.

“I am more appreciative of all of the agencies that are helping us put on these demonstrations.”

•••

The 2-year-old survived. So did her parents.

Concialdi, a captain/paramedic at the Orange County Fire Authority for the last four years, has seen too many horrific scenes where young people don’t make it. Drinking is often a lethal part of the equation.

“I think we’ve made a lot of people think,” Concialdi says. “For all the effort we’ve put into this program, I have to believe we’ve saved a few lives.

“These are horrific accidents, and if we can just save one life, it’s worth it.

“We’re hoping these young people can learn from the mistakes of someone else.”

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100626/ARTICLE/6261055/2055/NEWS?p=3&tc=pg

SARASOTA COUNTY – As the former Braden River High head football coach, Josh Hunter mentored athletes from broken homes, helped learning disabled students get to college and stressed setting big goals and doing the work to achieve them.

A Garden Grove man was found guilty Wednesday of second-degree murder for a drug- and alcohol-fueled crash that killed a woman bicycling alongside her teenage son in Seal Beach.

An Orange County Superior Court jury took just over a day of deliberations to convict 45-year-old Alex David Trujillo of the murder charge stemming from the Oct. 12, 2008, Orange County DUI collision that killed 46-year-old Catherine Busse.

Trujillo, who slumped in his chair and teared up as the verdict was read, faces 15 years to life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 20.

Judge James Marion earlier rejected the Orange County Criminal defense attorney,s  motion to let the jury consider a lesser charge of vehicular manslaughter.

Trujillo was charged with second-degree murder in part because he had a 2002 DUI conviction and had been warned about the dangers of drinking and driving and the risk of facing murder charges during court-mandated nine months of alcohol-awareness classes.

“The defendant presented a significant danger to society because he was accustomed to operating a motor vehicle with multiple drugs and large quantities of alcohol in his system,” Deputy District Attorney Susan Price said after the verdict was read.

“People cannot self-medicate and drink alcohol and get on the road,” she said. “It’s not fair to the rest of the people who are trying to make it from location to location without being hit by an impaired driver who should know better.”

“Do I believe that Alex Trujillo should not have accountability for this horrific traffic collision and the death of Catherine Busse? No,” Cohn said. “However, Alex Trujillo is not guilty of implied malice murder. He is guilty of one of several lesser-related crimes involving vehicular manslaughter, but not murder.”

Price, though, successfully argued that Trujillo showed a “conscious disregard for life” — the legal standard for second-degree murder — when he ran over Busse in his pickup truck while legally drunk and with painkillers and other prescription medicine in his system.

Trujillo had been hurt on the job as a driver for the Long Beach Unified School District and was prescribed the painkillers he had in his system the day of the crash, Cohn said. He has been a driver for the school district for more than 12 years, his attorney said.

Blood tests after the fatal crash showed Trujillo had the painkillers Oxycodone and Vicodin and the anti-anxiety medicine Xanax in his system. A defense expert who testified at the trial said the muscle relaxant Soma was later detected in the defendant’s system, Price said.

The Garden Grove resident had been drinking the night before at a wedding in Big Bear, according to trial testimony. He stayed overnight with his wife at a hotel near the reception and his wife drove them home.

Within a few hours of their return, Trujillo went out to pick up a few items for his grandmother at Bed Bath & Beyond, Cohn said. He was en route home when his pickup truck jumped a curb and struck Busse on Lampson Avenue near Seal Beach Boulevard.

The Seal Beach resident was bike riding alongside her 14-year-old son, who escaped with minor injuries.

The defendant’s blood-alcohol level was measured at .09 percent — above the legal limit of .08 — about 90 minutes after the crash, Price said.

Trujillo tearfully testified last week that he didn’t feel the effects of alcohol the afternoon of the crash.

Price argued that if Trujillo was telling the truth on the stand — that he stopped drinking at 1:30 that morning — then his blood-alcohol content at the wedding reception would have to have climbed as high as .30 or .40, a level toxic enough to kill most people. It was more likely that he drank again right before the crash, the prosecutor said.

Trujillo was given a commonly prescribed medicine for alcohol withdrawal while he was in the hospital after the Orange County DUI crash, and he lied to paramedics and nurses when he was first brought into the ER, saying he had no other prescriptions, the prosecutor said.

The defendant chewed on the tobacco end of a cigarette following the crash, apparently to mask the odor of alcohol on his breath, Price said.

When Trujillo was arrested for drinking and driving on Feb. 23, 2002, his blood-alcohol level was measured at .25 — more than three times the legal limit, Price said.

Cohn countered by pointing to testimony from Trujillo’s wife, who said her husband did not keep alcohol in the house after the DUI conviction and that she did not see him drinking after they got home from the wedding reception.

As for what his client said at the hospital, Cohn argued that Trujillo was disoriented, in shock and in pain from a broken ankle, ribs and collarbone.

Cohn argued the prosecution failed to show how much of the prescription drugs were in his client’s system or that they impaired his driving. Witnesses testified that he was not driving erratically and successfully made a couple of left-hand turns before failing to follow a curve in the road and striking the bicyclist, Cohn said.

The defense attorney predicted the issue of whether the jury should have been allowed to consider lesser charges would be taken up on appeal.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100615/COMMUNITY/100619709?Title=DUI-checkpoints-in-Petaluma-this-weekend

Petaluma police are warning drivers they’ll be holding two DUI checkpoints Saturday night as they look for DUI drivers and those with license violations.

ESCONDIDO —- Officers will conduct a driver’s license and DUI sobriety checkpoint at an undisclosed location Saturday, according to the Escondido Police Department.

The goal of the DUI checkpoint is to improve traffic safety by removing impaired and unlicensed drivers from city roads, police said. Drivers who are caught DUI face time in jail, the loss of their driver’s license, higher insurance rates and other expenses, police said.

Funding for the DUI program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

The DUI checkpoint will last from 6 p.m. Saturday to midnight.

Not that we’re in the business of giving free legal advice, but there are a few things every Orange County DUI lawyer should know. Lawyers should know how to handle a traffic stop, for instance. They should know how to handle cops who shout slurs at you from across the street. And of course, lawyers should never snitch.

Some of these lessons come as a shock to laypeople, and even some lawyers who didn’t pay enough attention during Criminal Procedure. But high on the list of things that trained attorneys should never do is submit to a breathalyzer test. You don’t need to be a DUI defense attorney to know that you don’t blow.

The unwritten rule isn’t there to protect drunk drivers (okay, it kind of is there to protect drunks who operate high-speed killing machines); it’s also there to protect innocent people who don’t want to get caught up in the criminal justice system.

An article in today’s Washington Post underscores the point: the breathalyzer simply cannot be trusted, and juries can’t be trusted to know that…

Look at how many people were wrongly convicted — in part because of breathalyzer results — in Washington, D.C. alone over the past couple of years:

Nearly 400 people were convicted of driving while intoxicated in the District since fall 2008 based on inaccurate results from breath test machines, and half of them went to jail, city officials said Wednesday.

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said the machines were improperly adjusted by city police. The jailed defendants generally served at least five days, he said.

Apparently, the calibrations weren’t even close to being correct:

The District’s badly calibrated equipment would show a driver’s blood-alcohol content to be about 20 percent higher than it actually was, Nickles said.

That is just unacceptable; are we sure that only 400 people got screwed by this?

The flawed testing does not jeopardize cases involving accidents or injuries, including fatal crashes, because blood or urine samples would have been taken as additional evidence, Nickles said.

Nickles said he does not believe the new findings will change the results of the routine DWI cases, either, because officers often relied on field sobriety tests and other observations for their arrests. Still, Assistant Police Chief Patrick Burke said he could see “reduced charges in cases.”

If there is a DUI defense attorney in the metro-D.C. area working on DUIs who buys that argument from Attorney General Nickles, then that defense attorney should be disbarred. You’re telling us that a breathalyzer result that was potentially 20% higher than it should have been wouldn’t influence a person’s plea decision or prejudice a jury? You’re saying that any number of DWI defendants would have been convicted on the strength of field sobriety tests and “other observations” alone? “Reduced charges”? D.C. courts should be flooded with entirely new trials to the extent that breathalyzer results were heavily relied upon evidence for convictions over the past two years.

Which brings us back to the central point: Don’t. Blow. Ever.  It’s self-incriminating — and potentially falsely self-incriminating — for no reason. If we want to protect ourselves from idiots who drive drunk, the way is to increase penalties on those rightly found guilty, not increase the likelihood that we’ll wrongly convict innocent people.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office DUI Unit is providing the information listed below in continuing efforts to increase traffic safety awareness and education, plus to emphasize the importance of obeying traffic laws to reduce DUI crashes, injuries and death on Lee County roads.

On Monday, June 14, 2010, the DUI Unit will target at least one of the following three locations for enforcement:

1. Pondella Road, North Fort Myers

2. Metro Parkway, Fort Myers

3. Pennsylvania Avenue, Bonita Springs

Locations are selected based upon high incidents of crashes, traffic surveys and citizen complaints. The Sheriff’s Office is committed to promoting traffic safety and enforcing the law. By focusing on violations such as red light running, speeding, DUI and others, motorists become more alert and are encouraged to obey traffic laws. The Sheriff’s Office Traffic Unit and District Patrol Deputies enforce our traffic laws each day by issuing citations and warnings. Preliminary results from their cumulative activity yesterday are as follows:

Citations Issued: 98

Written Warnings Issued: 160

Citizens can help by letting us know if they observe problem areas, aggressive or DUI drivers and by their compliance with the rules of the road. To get in touch with one of our traffic deputies call (239) 477-1000. If you see a reckless or drunk driver while you are traveling in your motor vehicle in Lee County, dial 9-1-1.

This traffic enforcement advisory is available each day on the Sheriff’s Office website at www.sheriffleefl.org.

Everyone is reminded to “Fasten Your Seat Belts, be courteous to drivers and pedestrians and together we can reduce traffic related fatalities, injuries and property damage.”

Note: Traffic Safety Tip of the Week: One of the most frequent citizen complaints is drivers running red lights. Red light running is also one of the most common causes of traffic crashes. Florida law was established creating higher fines and 4 points against your license in hopes of discouraging this risky habit. We encourage drivers to use good sense and always be prepared to stop at traffic signals.

Source: Lee County Sheriff’s Department