‘I wish the people could vote on something like this’ : Driver Steered Fight Against Sobriety Checks to High Court

In the swirl of people walking through the Orange County Courthouse on Wednesday, Richard B. Tuthill was just a face in the crowd.

Nobody recognized him by either name or face.

Yet this week Tuthill became a landmark of sorts in the legal system. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of his drunk-driving conviction, thereby letting stand a California law allowing police to halt motorists at sobriety checkpoints.

Tuthill, who lives in La Palma, was 17 when he was arrested at a sobriety checkpoint in Anaheim 3 years ago.

Now about to turn 21, Tuthill says he has “learned a lot about the law and the courts” by watching his drunk-driving arrest on New Year’s Day, 1986, move up the legal ladder.

“I never thought my case would go to the Supreme Court,” he said. “But I think this is important, and I still think sobriety checkpoints are an invasion of privacy. I wish the people could vote on something like this.”

Tuthill’s appeal argued that police have no probable cause to invade a person’s privacy by halting motorists at street checkpoints. A state Court of Appeal agreed, but the California Supreme Court disagreed and upheld the legality of sobriety checkpoints in the state.

Tuthill’s case then became a federal issue. The Orange County public defender’s office, which represented Tuthill, sent the constitutionality question to the highest court in the nation.

By a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Tuthill’s case and thus let the California Supreme Court decision stand. Police around the nation hailed the action as an important victory in efforts to get drunk drivers off the road. Civil libertarians, however, said the decision was an erosion of personal freedom.

Faces Sentencing

For Tuthill, the U.S. Supreme Court decision means he must now go back to Orange County Juvenile Court in Santa Ana for sentencing Feb. 15. He could face suspension of his driver’s license for a year, but he and his public defender, Sharon Petrosino, said they hope that the judge will impose a lesser sentence.

Tuthill and his fiancee, Geri Bass, 18, were in the County Courthouse in Santa Ana on Wednesday as spectators at another trial. During an interview, he recalled the events that led up to the Supreme Court decision.

“I was 17 at the time,” he said. “I had been to a New Year’s Eve party in 1985 with some of my friends from Kennedy High School in Anaheim. I was driving home to La Palma from the party, and this would have been early in the morning (Jan. 1, 1986). I saw a bunch of lights flashing on the street, and some cars flipped a quick ‘U-ee’ (a U-turn) and got out of

there. But I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was an accident scene.

“I stopped, and the officer asked me where I was coming from, and I told him I was coming from a party. Then he shined his light in my car and looked at me, and I had gotten in a fight that night, and he suspected I was trouble. He told me to pull my car over, and he gave me a sobriety test.”

Tuthill said police told him that he failed the test of walking a straight line and that his blood-alcohol reading was .12. State law says any driver with a .10 blood-alcohol level is driving under the influence.

Petrosino, Tuthill’s attorney, described a .12 test as “borderline” and said readings can vary up to .02.

“This is one reason I thought this would be a good test case,” she said. “Other reasons are that this defendant didn’t cause any problem, he had a clean driving record and he was a juvenile at the time. Because he was a juvenile, he could have had his driver’s license suspended for a year.”

Petrosino, now 29, had recently become a lawyer and had just been hired by the Orange County public defender. Tuthill “was one of my first cases,” she said. “He is a really nice kid, and he’s been a perfect client. There have been a lot of court dates scheduled, and he’s never missed a one.”

Tuthill said he is convinced that he could have driven home had he not been stopped at the roadblock. “To me, I wasn’t drunk,” he said. “I know my limit, and I don’t have a drinking problem.”

Nonetheless, Tuthill said, the arrest has taught him that “basically, you should not drink and drive, period. If I go drink somewhere, I always get my friends to drive me somewhere. I keep myself out of trouble.”

Tuthill, who is 5 feet, 11 inches and weighs 216 pounds, was on the football and wrestling teams at Kennedy High in La Palma. He said he dropped out of high school in his junior year for no particular reason, “but I got a job and supported myself and Geri.” The couple have a 21-month-old son, Timothy.

Tuthill said he has worked as a maintenance man on construction cranes but is unemployed and looking for a job.

He said he has a goal: to complete his high school education, attend a law enforcement training academy and become a deputy sheriff.

He concedes that there is irony in that goal, which could place him as an officer at a sobriety checkpoint.

“Wouldn’t that be something?” he grinned. “Be in the court system! Really!”