Drunk-Driving Court Dodgers Rounded Up

Unusually stiff sentences were given Thursday and Friday to 66 North County drunk drivers who failed to appear in court as ordered, after a roundup by law enforcement officers.

Most of the 66 offenders pleaded guilty, and the rest were held on $10,000 bail, court officials said.

First-time drunk-driving offenders usually receive a sentence of 48 hours, said court administrator Pat Johns, but Vista Municipal Judge Suzanne Knauf sentenced those first-time offenders snared in Wednesday’s sweep and pleading guilty to 10 to 15 days in jail.

“They went in for real sentences, they didn’t just get slapped on the wrist,” Johns said.

Seventy-seven people from Carlsbad, Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos and Vista were arrested in a Wednesday sweep of people wanted on warrants charging misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol. The warrants, which were issued between January and November, were the result of people failing to appear in court.

Before the sweep, 3,009 warrants were issued out of the Vista Municipal Court on drunk-driving offenses, said Marshal Sgt. George Ellis. About 50 law enforcement officials were used to execute 800 of those warrants Wednesday morning, arresting 77 people, many of whom had multiple warrants.

All of those arrested were booked in jail on at least $10,000 bail, and 10 of those met bail, Johns said.

Normally, a crowded jail system does not allow for those arrested on drunk-driving offenses to be held, and they are often released on their own recognizance and told to return to court, Ellis said. An understaffed court and law enforcement system allows many of those to ignore the order to return without being punished.

“We need to do these sweeps to put some teeth back into the system,” Ellis said. “These are pretty serious offenses. A lot of time and money and effort goes into prosecuting these people.

“It’s very frustrating for law enforcement because they make the initial arrests on misdemeanor warrants,” Ellis said. “Then they see (the drunk drivers) out there, and they can’t do anything about it.”

More sweeps are expected, Ellis said.

Public defense attorneys warned, however, that staff might be inadequate to handle the influx of cases.

“If you are going to provide extra money to the Sheriff’s Department, and the district attorney’s office is going to be beefed up to prosecute these cases, then you have to do the same for the public defender’s office,” said Larry Beyersdorf, a deputy public defender in Vista.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Bell said his office handled the arraignments without any additional staffing, and the defense should have been able to as well.