DWI Hit Parade!

From Independent Record
MISSOULA — During an emotional hearing that featured repeated pleas for tougher DUI laws, a Missoula man who drove drunk and rolled his truck, killing his best friend, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison.

“For too many years now in the state of Montana, DUI and vehicular homicide have had little consequences … and behavior has not changed,” Barbara Nelson tearfully told Missoula County District Court Judge John Larson. “I truly believe it is time for the judicial system to change the plea bargain away from treatment and toward incarceration.”

Nelson is the grandmother of Derek Nelson, 22, of Missoula, who died when a black Chevy truck driven by Marcus Sickles failed to negotiate a curve on Interstate 90 near Frenchtown last July. A blood test put Sickles’ blood alcohol content at 0.287 percent, more than three times the legal driving limit, according to court documents. ….MORE

From KRCG
The Jefferson City man charged in the deaths of two motorists in Cole County in the summer of 2011 appeared in court for sentencing today.
Damien Bryan was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for causing the accident that killed Russellville resident Don Edwards, and Kansas resident Joan Hamilton. Authorities said Bryan was under the influence of meth when he crossed the center line and set off a chain reaction.
“The blue pickup was trying to cross South Country Club road, either to get on Route C or to ….MORE

From Billings Gazette
Saying that she has never had anyone appear before her with a worse drunken-driving record, a state judge on Wednesday ordered a 55-year-old Billings man to serve 20 years at Montana State Prison.
District Judge Susan Watters imposed the sentence on William Dean Grussing for what a prosecutor said was his 14th DUI conviction.
Watters told Grussing that public safety, and his own need for treatment, demanded the lengthy prison term.
“I don’t think you’re a bad man, Mr. Grussing, but I think there’s just no way in the world you can get a handle on this yourself, and unfortunately it has taken you this long to figure that out,” the judge said. ….MORE

From MyFox28
DELAWARE — A Blendon Twp. man with a long string of DUI convictions will spend nearly three decades in prison after being convicted of killing a young mother while driving drunk.
Marc Kraft was sentenced to the maximum penalty in a Delaware County courtroom Friday.
Kraft was drunk behind the wheel of a pick-up truck that slammed into a car carrying Heidi Hecker, her boyfriend, and their 10 month-old daughter on US-23 near Ohio 315 in November, 2012.
Hecker died at the scene; her boyfriend and baby daughter were hurt, but survived the crash.
Visiting Judge John Bender said the maximum penalty was necessary …MORE

AURORA WOMAN PLEADS GUILTY TO 2009 FATAL DUI CRASH
Acording to Kane County Illinois States Attorney an Aurora woman will serve a prison sentence for a 2009 fatal DUI crash on Route 47 north of Sugar Grove.
Linda L. Knotts, 48 (d.o.b. 7-17-1964), of the 200 block of East Galena Boulevard, Aurora,  agreed to a sentence of seven years in the Illinois Department of
Corrections in exchange for a guilty plea to one count of aggravated DUI, a Class 2
felony.
Circuit Judge James C. Hallock accepted the plea.
At about 5:30 p.m. March 20, 2009, Knotts was driving her yellow 2007 Chevrolet S-10 pick-up south in the northbound lane on Route 47 near Merrill Road when she
struck head-on a vehicle driven by 54-year-old William McKenzie of Marengo. McKenzie was pronounced dead a short time later at a nearby hospital. Preceding
the crash, motorists had called 911 to report a yellow pick-up driving erratically at an excessive speed and passing numerous vehicles.
The investigation revealed that Knotts had cocaine in her blood at the time of the crash. A traffic reconstruction revealed that Knotts’ pick-up was traveling 73 mph
when it struck McKenzie’s vehicle, and that McKenzie’s vehicle was traveling within the posted 55 mph speed limit.
According to Illinois law, Knotts must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence.
Knotts will be given credit for 32 days served in the Kane County jail. Knotts remains free on $4,000 bond. Judge Hallock granted Knotts’ request to surrender Jan. 30,
2013, to begin her sentence.
“It remains a priority of this office to aggressively prosecute DUI cases. This crash was clearly preventable, the result of this defendant’s reckless and dangerous driving
with cocaine in her blood,” Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon said. “Mr. McKenzie’s death was nothing short of tragic.”
The case was prosecuted by Kane County Assistant State’s Attorney Bill Engerman.

From Times-Picayune
Twenty-five of Eric C. Davis’ neighbors on Melanie Avenue in Metairie were so irritated with his alleged drunk driving and criminal history five years ago, that they twice petitioned a Jefferson Parish judge – and their Jefferson Parish councilman, Elton Lagasse, even wrote a letter on their behalf saying as much. “Eric needs to be treated like all other criminals with lengthy records and be put in jail for several years,” Lagasse wrote then-Judge Joan Benge in August 2007, asking her to revoke his probation for DWI.
Benge did so at the time and sentenced him to seven years, suspending all but three years for what was his fifth DWI conviction – on his 10th DWI arrest. ….MORE

Glen Higginbotham Jr.,

(Jan. 7, 2013) — JOLIET – According to the Will County States Attorney’s Office, a Yorkville man today was sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated drunken driving offenses that occurred in 2010 and 2011.
Glen Higginbotham Jr., 34, was convicted of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol and aggravated driving with a revoked license stemming from a DUI crash on New Lenox Road on Christmas Day of 2011. Circuit Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak found him guilty in November at the conclusion of a bench trial.
In December 2010, Higginbotham was arrested and later pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated DUI and aggravated driving with a revoked license. In that case, he was found sleeping in his car while intoxicated on Nicholson Street in Joliet.
Prior to these cases, Higginbotham spent seven years in prison after being convicted of reckless homicide for a drunken driving crash in 1999 that killed a 10-year-old girl in Lockport. Higginbotham had been driving with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit and speeding at 81 mph, more than 45 mph above the posted speed limit, when he struck a car in which the little girl was a passenger.
After serving that sentence, he was arrested in 2010 and in 2011 for the new DUI offenses. The judge sentenced Higginbotham to four years in prison for aggravated DUI in the 2011 incident and four years in prison for aggravated DUI in the 2010 incident. The sentences run consecutive to each other for a total of eight years.
“Glen Higginbotham is a menace to society whose abject failure to learn even the smallest lesson after causing a crash that killed a little girl has landed him back in prison where he belongs,” said State’s Attorney Glasgow.
“Higginbotham is completely lacking in decency and remorse. Our streets and our community are safer with him behind bars.”
Assistant State’s Attorneys Frank Byers and Tom Slazyk prosecuted the recent cases against Higginbotham.

(Editor’s Note: Police officers need to respect court dates the same as citizens…maybe if Judge Jolly locked up some of these deputies they would reschedule their leave and training dates…meanwhile the citizens and witnesses have taken off from work to attend only to have the hapless prosecutor ask for a continuance…Hats Off to Judge Jolly!)

“So, it’s ironic to me that at the same time this community is seeing that from our criminal justice system, they’re also learning that in another courtroom (DWI) cases are being dismissed en masse over state objection because an officer wasn’t present.” — District Attorney Jon David

A police officer has the same obligation to appear in court as a defendant or witness. Police officials know in advance both training days and court appearances. The prosecutor should not be “puzzled” unless he just got out of law school last year…

The prosecutor told the newspaper reporter that the defense attorneys didn’t object to the delays caused by cops failing to appear for court dates…first, this is just another time the lawyers can bill their clients and second, the defense attorneys often need their own delays and their legal practice often hinges on the edge of financial ruin and friendly relations with the D. A. keeps them solvent…

From Star News
Impaired driving charges against 28 people were refiled by the Brunswick County District Attorney’s Office recently after the prosecutor was forced to dismiss the original cases because a judge wouldn’t grant a continuance.
Chief 13th Judicial District Court Judge Jerry A. Jolly made the decision despite the fact that the defense attorneys in the cases didn’t object to the continuances and the officers called to testify were unable to attend.
On Nov. 28, and again on Dec. 12, Jolly denied prosecution requests to continue driving while impaired cases when he was informed on Nov. 28 that the arresting officer was in mandatory training and on Dec. 12 that the deputy was out on leave.
But, Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office records indicate, in each of the 28 cases continuances were granted at least once – and in some cases up to five and six times – at the request of the defense attorneys. Fourteen of the 28 cases were also previously continued at the request of the prosecution.
“I don’t know why he denied the continuance,” said District Attorney Jon David on Friday. “You’d have to ask (Jolly).” …. MORE

‘Cadilac goin’ ’bout 95, bumper to bumper and lots of jive…’

Mitnesh Krishna Reddy….BOUND FOR PRISON… all due to a need to party…he killed Sondra Gentile and fled the scene like a yellow jackal…

From San Mateo County Times
REDWOOD CITY — A 23-year-old man was sentenced to nine years in prison Thursday for a drunken hit-and-run crash in 2011 that left a San Bruno woman dead, a prosecutor said.
Mitnesh Krishna Reddy, of San Bruno, was immediately taken into custody after San Mateo Superior Court Judge Mark Forcum handed down the sentence during an emotional hearing. The family of the victim, Sondra Gentile, 61, made powerful statements about her loss, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
Authorities say Reddy was drunk when he plowed his Cadillac STS into the passenger side of Gentile’s Honda Civic around 3:50 a.m. Nov. 17, 2011. He ran a red light before hitting Gentile on El Camino Real in San Bruno as she exited Interstate 380, police said.
After the crash, Reddy left his ….MORE