Trial Opens for Woman in Fatal Drunk Driving Case : Law: The Newhall resident is charged with vehicular manslaughter in the death of a Canadian motorcyclist. She has been arrested six times.

A Newhall woman with a history of six drunk-driving arrests went on trial Tuesday in the death of a Canadian motorcyclist she allegedly ran down while driving drunk on the Golden State Freeway in Sun Valley last fall.

Patricia Lee Giunta, 41, is charged in San Fernando Superior Court with vehicular manslaughter and felony drunk driving in connection with the Oct. 4, 1989, death of David Jaggs, 24.

Jaggs was riding his motorcycle about 8:30 p.m. with his wife, Janine, 21, when they were struck from behind by a truck driven by Giunta, prosecutors said.

Jaggs and his wife were thrown from the motorcycle and run over by the truck, prosecutors said.

Jaggs died later that night. His wife was seriously injured.

The couple had been married a month earlier and had moved to the Los Angeles area to attend college.

According to court records, Giunta had a blood-alcohol level of 0.29%--more than three times the level at which a person is considered legally drunk--shortly after the accident.

The arrest was Giunta’s fifth for drunk driving since 1974, according to court records.

She was arrested a sixth time while free on bail after the fatal accident.

In all but one case, the drunk-driving charges were either reduced or dismissed because she has been able to manipulate the court system, prosecutors said.

Her one conviction for drunk driving came in 1983, when Giunta was sentenced by a Pasadena judge to three years probation and ordered to perform community service.

A judge in West Covina reduced a 1974 drunk-driving charge to a minor traffic violation, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacquelyn Lacey, who is prosecuting Giunta in the current case.

Giunta was given probation and ordered to pay a fine.

In a March, 1989, case, two breath tests showed Giunta’s blood-alcohol level was 0.16% and 0.17% after she ran into another vehicle.

Officers found an open bottle of vodka in Giunta’s car, but Giunta said she began drinking the liquor after the collision because she was so upset.

Jurors failed to reach a verdict and the charge was dismissed.

Another drunk-driving charge from Alhambra was dropped in June, 1989.

And she was acquitted in August of the drunk-driving charge brought while she was free on bail in the accident that killed Jaggs.

In both those cases, prosecutors lacked evidence necessary to convict Giunta because she refused to submit to blood-alcohol tests, Lacey said.

Law enforcement officers cannot force a drunk-driving suspect to submit to blood-alcohol tests unless the person is suspected of a felony in which someone has been injured or killed, Lacey said.

Lacey said California Highway Patrol officers had to hold Giunta down while they administered the test after her arrest in October, 1989.

She is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Robert Fernandez, Giunta’s attorney in most of her cases, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

In testimony Tuesday, Roland Corado, a witness to the fatal accident, said David and Janine Jaggs were thrown from their motorcycle and as they were dragged by Giunta’s truck, Jaggs “was twisted like a pretzel.”