5 Restrained Driver for Blood Test, Officer Says : Courts: Patricia Lee Giunta, charged with running down a motorcyclist, had an alcohol level of 0.29%, three times the legal limit, records show.

A Newhall woman on trial for allegedly killing a motorcyclist while driving drunk had to be held down by four officers and a jail nurse in order to test her blood-alcohol level after the accident, a California Highway patrol officer testified Thursday.

Patricia Lee Giunta, who has had five other drunk-driving arrests and one conviction, also struggled with officers when she was arrested after the crash, CHP Officer Frank Lewis testified at Giunta’s trial on a charge of vehicular manslaughter.

The accident on the Golden State Freeway in Sun Valley on Oct. 4, 1989, killed a Canadian student, David Jaggs, 24, and seriously injured his wife of one month, Janine, 21.

Lewis said Giunta, 41, twice agreed to breath and blood tests, but then refused to cooperate. Finally, Lewis said, he, another CHP officer, two jail officers and a jail nurse restrained Giunta on a gurney while blood was drawn from her arm to determine the amount of alcohol in her system.

According to court records, Giunta’s blood-alcohol content was 0.29%--more than three times the level at which a motorist is considered legally drunk.

Jaggs, ironically, was the son of an Anglican priest who counsels alcoholics and drug addicts in Windsor, Ontario.

CHP Officer Robert Koetting, who investigated the case, said it is “highly unusual” for a drunk-driving suspect to resist a blood-alcohol test to the point where it must be performed forcibly.

But refusal was not unusual for Giunta, who prosecutors said was acquitted in two previous drunk-driving cases largely because she had refused to submit to blood-alcohol tests, which are usually the key prosecution evidence.

Officers cannot force a drunk-driving suspect to submit to blood-alcohol tests unless they are making a felony arrest for an accident in which someone was killed or injured, as was the case when Giunta was arrested following the crash that killed Jaggs. Refusal to allow such a test, however, is grounds for revocation of the suspect’s driver’s license.

Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman Bill Gengler said Giunta’s license was revoked for two years in January for the accident that killed Jaggs and again in April for refusing a blood-alcohol test after she was arrested on another drunk-driving charge while free on bail in the current case.

Investigators describe Giunta as a shrewd defendant who knows how to manipulate the legal system and play up to juries in order to secure an acquittal or dismissal.

“After five trials, I think she knows what to do,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Whyte. Whyte lost the case in August in which Giunta was accused of driving drunk while free on bail less than a month after the accident that killed Jaggs.

Robert Fernandez, Giunta’s attorney, who also has represented her in three previous drunk-driving cases, said authorities are pursuing his client with unnecessary vigor and accused past investigators of lying about evidence.

“There is a mentality that she’s slipped through the system and that they have to convict her at any cost,” Fernandez said. “I do believe they want to put her away.”

Fernandez, who declined to talk about the current trial, said Giunta “has not beat the system through any kind of tactics. The juries absolved her.”

In all but one of Giunta’s five other arrests, she has either been acquitted or had the cases dismissed. In 1983, she was sentenced to probation and ordered to perform community service.

The Rev. Ken Jaggs, the dead man’s father, who has worked for 23 years counseling alcoholics and drug addicts, said Thursday that the death of his son has affected his work.

The elder Jaggs, 62, said he now confronts patients more aggressively with the possible consequences of their addictions. He said jail is appropriate for repeat offenders provided they receive treatment while locked up.

Although he refused to comment on the case against Giunta, Jaggs said “we want to see justice done.”

Prosecutors interviewed this week said they were discouraged that her previous arrests are not admissible evidence in Giunta’s trial.

“She’s a danger to society and the sad thing is that you have 12 members of the community who don’t know what a danger she is,” Whyte said.