Return to Jail Is Sought for Freed Driver : Courts: State attorney general’s office wants judge to take woman who killed bicyclist while drunk out of home surveillance program.

The state attorney general’s office asked the San Diego Municipal Court on Wednesday to return a 19-year-old woman to jail to serve the rest of her one-year jail term for killing a man while driving drunk last year.

Renee Reid of Lakeside served 31 days of her sentence before being placed in an electronic-surveillance program that allowed her to remain home instead of in jail.

That decision by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department led to protest on television and radio talk shows amid demands by the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving for stiffer sentences in drunk driving cases, particularly when someone is killed.

“We are looking at the seriousness of the crime,” said Rhonda Cartwright, a deputy state attorney general who prosecuted the case against Reid. That office prosecuted the case because Reid’s father is an investigator with the county district attorney’s office, which otherwise would have handled it.

“The home detention program is not appropriate in this case,” Cartwright said. “The Sheriff’s Department took it upon itself to play prosecutor, probation officer and judge in deciding how long Renee Reid should spend in jail.”

Cartwright said she will ask Municipal Judge Terry Knoepp, who sentenced Reid, to remove her from home detention and “make sure her 365 days in jail are served.” A court date is set for April 13.

Last July, Reid, speeding along a frontage road in Lakeside, plowed into bicyclist Phil Cramer, who was tossed over a 6-foot chain-link fence and into the middle of adjacent Interstate 8. Cramer’s friend John Drogitis had been riding directly in front of Cramer during the accident but was not injured.

Reid, then 18, pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. Her blood alcohol level was measured at nearly double the legal limit.

Knoepp sentenced her to a year in jail and five years’ probation and fined her $1,500 at a hearing in which Reid begged Cramer’s widow, Lori, and Drogitis for forgiveness. Cramer is also survived by a 7-year-old son.

Interviewed last week, Knoepp said he was not informed of Reid’s release but was satisfied with the sentence. It is up to the Sheriff’s Department, he said, to decide whether an inmate is eligible for home surveillance.

Male offenders, who are supervised by the county Probation Department, must serve at least half their sentences before becoming eligible for home surveillance unless otherwise ordered by a judge. Women are under no such restriction.

The surveillance program, enacted by the Legislature to ease jail crowding, requires an offender to wear an electronic bracelet that automatically notifies the Sheriff’s Department if the person is more than 50 yards away from the home telephone.

Reid’s case was unusual in that the captain of the Las Colinas women’s jail where she was housed made the decision to release her to home detention. Capt. Benny McLaughlin noted that, among other criteria, Reid came from a “good family.”

In her 10-page motion, Cartwright asked if Reid, “who has the good fortune of being raised in a ‘good home,’ ” is “more deserving” of being a part of home detention than is “an 18-year-old male defendant convicted of killing someone?”

“Is (Reid) more deserving of participation in the program than an 18-year-old female defendant who comes from a disadvantaged home?” Cartwright asked. “The answer to these questions should be a resounding no.”

A corrections counseling supervisor who oversaw Reid’s case defended McLaughlin’s decision, saying that jail “was not a good experience” for Reid. “I can tell you one thing,” supervisor Dick Ariessohn said. “That 30 days was hell on that kid.”

Cartwright scoffed at Ariessohn’s comments in her motion.

“Lest it be forgotten, confinement in a jail facility is not designed to be a pleasant experience,” she wrote. “It is this court, not the San Diego County sheriff, which is responsible for determining how much time in custody is appropriate when a defendant knowingly drinks and knowingly drives, and then kills someone as a result of her actions.”

Cartwright said the state prosecutor’s office had decided to renew its case against Reid now after identifying the proper state penal code that allows the court to “restrict or deny the defendant’s participation in a home detention program.”

Sheriff’s officials said the attorney general’s action surprised them because the sheriff is charged with determining whether inmates can be released if crowding exists.

However, sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblat said, “If the judge so orders that she be returned, the sheriff will immediately comply.”

Neither Reid’s attorney, Lee Witham, nor her father, Frank, returned calls Wednesday.

If Knoepp approves the state’s request, Reid will probably be granted as time served the six weeks she has already spent under electronic surveillance, Cartwright said, and eventually might have to spend only another six to eight months in jail.

Lori Cramer said she supports the state’s decision to file the new motion.

“I have said all along that the punishment did not fit the crime,” she said. “If she has to go in and serve her sentence, well, that’s what the original sentence was for. If the (state attorney general’s) office feels she should go back into custody, so be it.”

Since the story about Reid was published last week in The Times, Cramer has been a guest on numerous national and local news programs describing her outrage over Reid’s sentence.

“I haven’t missed an opportunity to say what I think,” she said. “I just don’t want what happened to me to happen to anybody else. I want the public to be aware of this and to make a change so it doesn’t happen again.”

Critics of the electronic surveillance program say it does little to punish the offender.

“It’s a fad, not a punishment,” said H. Ronald Domnitz, presiding judge of the San Diego Municipal Court. “It is socially and economically prejudicial and is used for middle-class, white drunk drivers. But, in San Diego County, it is also used for those convicted for multiple drunk-driving offenses, and that’s outrageous.”

The program’s only legitimate use, Domnitz said, is for someone who must take care of a critically ill family member, or if the convict is an invalid.

Using the bracelet to alleviate jail crowding should never be an option, he said, because those who are admitted to the program “probably shouldn’t be in jail anyway.”

Domnitz said he could not comment on the specifics of the Reid case.

In the state’s motion, Cartwright said Reid must be held to serve her one-year sentence “not simply to punish her for her felonious conduct, but to deter her and others in the community from drinking and driving in the future.”

By sentencing Reid to one year in jail, she said, the judge “attempted to send a strong message to the community that such conduct will not be tolerated by anyone, regardless of their age, their status in the community or their upbringing.”