MADD Accuses Him of Freeing ‘Potential Murderers’ : Florida Defense Attorney Makes Specialty of Drunk Driving Cases

Advocates of harsher drunk-driving laws accuse defense attorney Richard Essen of freeing killers.

“He’s getting potential murderers off and allowing them to continue to drive,” said Diane Holmes, president of Dade County’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter.

“We do not like what he does,” said Holmes, whose son was killed by a hit-and-run driver who she believes had been drinking.

A former Dade County prosecutor, Essen set out three years ago to become an expert on drunk driving. He was tired, he said, of representing drug defendants.

“I decided that, if I could produce the best results in drunk driving, I would get business,” said the 47-year-old lawyer, who in 1963 successfully defended comedian Lenny Bruce on charges of heroin possession and driving under the influence.

Claims to Always Win

Essen claims to have won all his cases since 1983--1,200 to 1,500 of them--but one prosecutor says Essen has arranged for a number of his clients to plead guilty. He does national consulting work, has a six-lawyer staff and believes that his is the country’s largest practice devoted to drunk driving cases.

Essen, who loathes drunk driving but thinks offenders need help instead of jail, has no harsh words for his detractors.

“A car with a drunk in it is a 4,000-pound bullet. It’s a terrible thing,” he said. “MADD, to their credit and our detriment, directed this nation’s attention to one of our most serious social, legal and health problems.”

Essen often files stacks of legal motions for clients, in hope that the 90 days in which cases must be tried will run out and charges will be dismissed.

His chief antagonist is prosecutor Jill Menadier, head of Dade County’s Driving Under the Influence division. Menadier, whose former boss recently joined Essen’s firm, said Essen avoids trials, at times arranging for clients to plead guilty.

‘Not a Courtroom Victory’

“The benefit (of pleading clients) is saying you never lost a case,” she said. But that’s not a courtroom victory, she said.

Essen has been interviewed on the Phil Donahue show, “60 Minutes” and featured in People magazine. He also teaches fellow lawyers about defending drunk drivers.

His clients are often problem drinkers who need counseling, not jail or criminal convictions that can ruin careers and lives, Essen contends.

“The current emphasis on punitive measures may fail to address the real problem,” said George Marcelle of the National Council on Alcoholism in New York. Of 18.3 million adults who are heavy drinkers, 12.1 million show signs of alcoholism. Drunk drivers tend to repeat the offense, and jail can’t cure them, Marcelle said.

In 1985, 50% of the nation’s 43,800 highway deaths were alcohol-related, Marcelle said.

In Florida in 1985, 1,294 of 2,870 fatal traffic accidents, or about 45%, involved drunk driving, according to statistics from the state department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

High Conviction Rate

Of the 78,939 Florida arrests for drunk driving in 1985, 57,719 cases--or about 73%--led to convictions, according to figures from the state Bureau of Uniform Traffic Citations.

Essen asks all new clients to get counseling and insists on it for those that he suspects are hard-core drinkers. Then the legal work begins, at prices starting at $2,500 and increasing for each past driving-under-the-influence conviction the client has.

Essen combs every aspect of the prosecution’s case. Was the client informed of his rights? Was there a medical problem that might have influenced a balance test or other drunkenness measure?

Florida has an array of laws governing DUI charges, and Essen searches for violations. For example, by law, blood samples must be drawn by licensed nurses.

In one case, the nurse’s license had lapsed. The defendant pleaded guilty in exchange for the judge withholding a finding of guilt. In another, police wouldn’t let a suspect use the bathroom until he was tested for drunkenness. Essen called the long bathroom delay coercion. Case dismissed.

In a third case, a police officer admitted under questioning that he couldn’t be sure whether the liquor he smelled on a suspect was from a drink or medicine. If the officer wasn’t sure, then results of state drunkenness tests couldn’t be used, Essen argued. Case won.

Penalties Listed

A first drunk-driving conviction in Florida may bring up to six months in jail, fines of up to $500 or probation for up to a year. Those convicted are required to perform 50 hours of community service and take 15 hours of alcohol abuse classes.

In addition, a person’s driver’s license is revoked for six to 12 months, but, after the convicted driver takes the classes, judges may grant a special permit for driving--only to work or to school.

Judges have less discretion in sentencing people convicted for additional drunk-driving offenses.

Second convictions bring up to nine months in jail, longer classes, heftier fines and loss of license for five years. But offenders can get permits to drive to work.

Licenses are lost for up to 10 years on third offenses, plus a year in jail. Fourth offenses are third-degree felonies instead of misdemeanors.

In addition, drivers face double the fines if their blood tests show more than double the 0.1% alcohol level that constitutes drunkenness in Florida and most other states.

‘Scum of the Earth’

MADD says the punishments aren’t stiff enough, especially for the many repeat offenders.

“They’re the complete scum of the Earth,” Holmes said. “We’re sentenced to a lifetime of pain. That’s what makes lawyers like Mr. Essen so frustrating.”

Essen said drunk driving shouldn’t be a criminal offense. He criticizes the current law that orders nominal counseling while often handing out provisional driver’s licenses.

He proposes that licenses be revoked until defendants can prove that they have stopped drinking.

“If this person is an alcoholic, he may never get his license back. Well, he has no right to be on our roads,” Essen said.

But “when I hear people saying, ‘Drunk drivers don’t deserve a trial,’ I wonder if they’d prefer Russia. We’re talking about basic democratic principles,” he said. “I believe in what I do.”