Olympia DUI Lawyer Blog

Washington State Patrol is targeting those with active warrants on DUI cases. Troopers are working with the Mason County Prosecutor's office to apprehend the 1,160 defendants who have missed court on DUI charges. Mason county is asking those with DUI warrants to call Mason County District Court at (360) 427-9670, ext. 339 to learn how to quash their warrants.

Recent headlines regarding the Cleavland Brown's Donte Stallworth's DUI manslaughter conviction have been centering around his apologies for the crime. Stallworth, who struck and killed pedestrian Mario Reyes while driving drunk with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .126, served 24 days in jail. Upon his release from jail, he has to now serve 2 years of home confinement. Stallworth will now be able to leave his house to go train with coach Pete Bommarito, even though he is not technically employed with the NFL. (Typically, in Washington, defendant's who are on "house arrest," or electric home monitoring, are allowed to leave their homes to attend work.)

Compare that to local Thurston County resident Karen Lynn Clark, who pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide yesterday in exchange for a 30 month prison sentence. I am sure Clark would have greatly preferred 24 days in the county jail followed by 24 months of staying at home- let alone a home as nice as Stallworth's.

An interesting data release indicated that, based on statistics gathered by the FBI, in 2007, the number of women taken into custody in for DUI was 28.8 percent greater in 2007 than it was in 1998, while the number of men apprehended was 7.5 percent lower. The numbers were taken from just 56 percent of the country, though Alfred Blumstein, a Carnegie Mellon criminologist, states "the trend probably holds true for the country as a whole."