Responsibility on Trial in DUI Case : Courts: Laguna Beach physician faces second-degree murder conviction for killing two people while driving drunk. Defense argues that he didn’t intend harm. Proceedings begin Monday.

The trial of Dr. Ronald Allen won’t be a “whodunit.” The physician accused of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol admits he crashed into and killed a Mission Viejo couple in 1993.

When testimony begins Monday in Orange County Superior Court, jurors have a tougher job--deciding whether Allen is a murderer.

In a rare application of state law, Orange County prosecutors are seeking two second-degree murder convictions against Allen, arguing that his prior brushes with police, combined with his medical background, made him aware that driving while intoxicated can be deadly. The defense says Allen never intended to harm others and should instead be convicted of vehicular manslaughter.

The California Supreme Court in 1981 ruled that prosecutors could seek second-degree murder convictions in traffic fatalities. But its use against intoxicated drivers remains unusual, in part because it poses a heavy legal burden for prosecutors: They must show that the defendant knew the risks and yet acted with a “conscious disregard” for human life.

“The question is, how do you prove that? It’s not like you have a guy who yells ‘Hey, I’m drunk and I’m going to drive and I don’t care if I kill someone!’ before he gets behind the wheel,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. John D. Conley.

According to the California Highway Patrol, alcohol-related traffic crashes claimed 467 lives in Orange County between 1989 and 1993. But murder charges are filed in only two or three cases each year, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

The vast majority of drunk drivers who kill are charged with vehicular manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 11 years in prison. Second-degree murderers are sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Factors used to differentiate between the two include the level of intoxication, the defendant’s driving history and the circumstances of the crash, Conley said.

A classic second-degree murder case involves a convicted drunk driver who gets behind the wheel, speeds and kills someone. A typical vehicular manslaughter case might involve a driver with no history of driving while intoxicated who strikes a pedestrian stepping into the street, Conley said.

“The distinction, the line between the two, can be a very thin one in some cases,” Conley said.

Some defense attorneys, however, fear that prosecutors also allow emotions or media attention to play a role, although prosecutors deny it.

“It seems to me they file (murder charges) when there are sympathetic victims, and that is simply not fair,” said Allen’s defense attorney, Assistant Public Defender Michael P. Giannini.

The Laguna Beach doctor is accused of injecting a “substantial” level of Valium, drinking and driving erratically before the July 11 collision on Santiago Canyon Road that killed Mark and Noreen Minzey and injured 12-year-old Karie Minzey as the family returned from a softball game.

Prosecutors say they decided to file murder charges because of Allen’s history of driving while intoxicated.

In June, 1993--shortly before the fatal crash--Allen was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication, hit-and-run driving and resisting arrest after he allegedly rammed his car into three parked vehicles in Laguna Beach. That case was pending at the time of the fatal crash.

Hours before the crash that killed the Minzeys, Allen was cited for speeding. But the officers who stopped him did not discover an outstanding warrant for his arrest stemming from another collision in April, 1992, when Allen allegedly rear-ended a car while driving drunk.

In November, 1992, Allen had consumed alcohol shortly before he was stopped by a law enforcement officer in Palm Springs. The officer admonished Allen after learning of his profession, saying “You should know better than that,” according to earlier court testimony.

Giannini and Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko have declined to comment while Allen’s case is pending trial.

But Giannini has said in the past that prosecutors are overcharging his client. Giannini has always stressed that Allen has never been convicted of drunk driving and said he was going through extreme emotional difficulties at the time of the crash.

When the fatal accident took place, Allen was nearly bankrupt, suffering from stress and depression and had just learned his father died.

Prosecutors recently rejected filing murder charges in the high-profile case of a Buena Park man accused of drunk driving and killing La Habra Police Officer Michael Osornio on Halloween. After reviewing the circumstances of the crash, and suspect Marco Ramirez’s lack of criminal history, prosecutors charged him with vehicular manslaughter.

Prosecutors will be asked to make a similar call Monday, when the California Highway Patrol plans to make its case for charging Shane Young, 25, with murder for running down and killing 16-year-old Jasmine Cook, a friend and neighbor, in an October crash in Silverado Canyon.

CHP spokeswoman Angel Johnson said there is evidence Young was racing another car and may have been intoxicated. Young also has a history of speeding citations, court documents show.

Reidel Post, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving of Orange County, said she has only praise for the Orange County district attorney’s office and how it handles drunk-driving fatalities. Post said she agrees with prosecutors’ decisions in most cases.

“These are very, very difficult cases to prove in court, and overall I am very pleased with their efforts,” Post said.

Legal experts say prosecutors typically need overwhelming evidence before they can successfully prosecute a murder case. One reason is that jurors may empathize with the defendant, said Gregory Christopher Brown, assistant professor of criminal justice at Chapman University in Orange.

“It can be a case of ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ ” he said.

Orange County prosecutors won their first second-degree murder conviction against a drunk driver in 1986, when Michael Reding was found guilty of killing Pamela Trueblood of Fullerton and her three young children.

But what started out as a symbol for tougher treatment of drunk drivers in Orange County has since become a reminder of the legal difficulties involved in such cases.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana later faulted a judge for allowing jurors to hear evidence about Reding’s possible drug use and overturned Reding’s conviction. In a retrial, jurors said they grappled with the issue of malice and ultimately voted to find Reding guilty of vehicular manslaughter.

Robert Trueblood, who lost his family in the crash, said he still feels cheated by “the legal system--I can’t call it a justice system.”

Trueblood, who frequently speaks out to warn the public about driving while intoxicated, recalled being unable to identify his young son’s mangled body after the crash.

“A car is a very good means of transportation, but it is also a deadly, destructive weapon, and I don’t think there are too many people who don’t know that they shouldn’t be drinking and driving,” he said. “But I understand firsthand that it’s hard to prove in court.”

Drunk Driving Injuries Down

Drunk driving-related deaths and injuries in Orange County have declined substantially over the last five years, except for a slight increase in deaths in 1993, the most recent year for which information is available:

Deaths

1989: 122

1993: 76

Injuries

1989: 4,848

1993: 3,061

Source: CHP; Researched by RENE LYNCH / Los Angeles Times