Court Upholds Prison Term for Ex-Prosecutor

A former county prosecutor who was drunk when his car crashed into an auto driven by an Escondido school teacher, killing her, was properly sentenced to a six-year prison term, a state appellate court in San Diego has ruled.

Charles A. Van Dusen, a former deputy district attorney in Vista who prosecuted many drunk-driving cases during his career, did not receive an overly harsh sentence because he was convicted of a “very serious” crime, the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled.

The crash that sent Van Dusen to prison took place Sept. 2, 1988. Elementary school teacher Carol Benson, 45, was driving home for lunch on Cole Grade Road in Valley Center when Van Dusen, traveling about 90 m.p.h. in his Corvette, struck her car head-on.

Benson died instantly. Van Dusen received minor injuries. His wife, Susan, a passenger in his car, was not hurt.

Van Dusen’s blood-alcohol level measured 0.20, double the then-legal limit.

Van Dusen pleaded guilty in December, 1988, to vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. In February, 1989, San Diego Superior Judge Jesus Rodriguez sentenced Van Dusen to the six-year prison term, saying Van Dusen had a “longstanding alcohol abuse problem” and had demonstrated an “unwillingness and inability” to control it.

In an opinion issued Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court rejected Van Dusen’s contention that Rodriguez was arbitrary in imposing the six-year sentence. There was no evidence to support that claim, Judge Gilbert Nares said.

The panel also denied Van Dusen’s claim that the sentence was unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. A six-year term is not unusual for someone convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter and does not “shock the conscience,” Nares said.

Judges William L. Todd Jr. and Patricia Benke concurred in the opinion.

Last December, Benson’s three children settled a wrongful-death lawsuit against Van Dusen they had filed a few months earlier in Vista Superior Court, accepting $225,000 to end the case.