Phillips’ Plea Here Could Land Him in Nebraska Jail

Running back Lawrence Phillips of the St. Louis Rams entered a no-contest plea Monday in Rio Hondo Municipal Court to a sole count of drunken driving, and prosecutors in Nebraska immediately said they would seek to have him jailed there for allegedly violating probation.

In a brief hearing Monday morning in the El Monte courthouse, Phillips, 21, pleaded no contest to driving under the influence on June 13 on the Pomona Freeway.

He was sentenced by Commissioner Jose A. Rodriguez to three years’ probation, fined $1,000 plus penalty assessments--a total of $2,994--and ordered to serve 80 hours of community service, half at the county morgue.

In Lincoln, Neb., where Phillips had been put on probation last year for an assault on a former girlfriend, prosecutors promptly said they would seek to have the former Nebraska standout serve at least 30 days in jail--and perhaps as much as six months.

Nancy Wynner, the deputy Lancaster County attorney who prosecuted the assault case, said the plea in the case here would seem to violate the term of his Nebraska probation requiring Phillips to refrain from “unlawful conduct.”

Phillips was sentenced in Lincoln on Dec. 5, 1995, to a year’s probation after reportedly pulling his former girlfriend by her hair down a flight of stairs. He also received a 30-day suspended jail sentence after pleading no contest to misdemeanor assault and trespassing charges.

“My inclination would be that he serve that 30 days,” Wynner said Monday. She had filed court papers in Lincoln on Sept. 5, charging Phillips with violating probation for allegedly driving drunk.

If Phillips is found by “clear and convincing” evidence to have violated probation, he could be sentenced to up to six months in jail and fined $500, she said.

“Clear and convincing” evidence is a lesser standard than the “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” required to obtain the conviction in the California drunk driving case.

Even so, prosecutors must offer compelling evidence to prove a probation violation--such as the conviction.

Just as with a guilty plea, a no-contest plea results in a formal conviction, giving a judge the power to enter judgment and sentence a defendant.

The chief difference between the two is that a “nolo plea” cannot be used against a defendant in a related civil case, as a guilty plea can. But a probation violation proceeding is not a civil case; it is a criminal matter.

No court date in Lincoln has been set.

What’s most likely to happen, Wynner said, is that a judge will order an updated probation report for Phillips.

“With that new report, we would be able to seek whether we wanted more than 30 days,” she said.

Phillips’ Nebraska attorney, Hal Anderson, could not be reached for comment.

The sentence Phillips was given Monday was standard for a first-time DUI offender.

Phillips, who played at Baldwin Park High and was the Rams’ No. 1 pick in last April’s draft, was arrested while driving a Mercedes-Benz with a flat left front tire at 78 mph in a 65-mph zone. His blood-alcohol level was found to be about twice California’s legal limit of 0.08.

Monday, Phillips was also ordered to undergo a drunk-driving awareness and educational program.