On the day she was diagnosed with breast cancer, a single mom (we’ll call her Rosemary) made the biggest mistake of her life. A nurse at a local medical clinic, Rosemary had a few drinks and tried to drive home to tell her 17-year-old daughter the bad news about the cancer.
She was stopped by a police officer who noticed her drifting in her lane. After performing poorly on several field sobriety tests, she was arrested for DUI — driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor, a Class 1 misdemeanor.
As a result of her mistake, Rosemary, like most DUI defendants that appear in my court, entered into a plea agreement. The penalties were 30 days in jail, fines of $1,480, mandated counseling (which costs $407 on average), and a requirement to install an ignition interlock device in her car.
The interlock device prevents the driver from driving the car if any alcohol is in the breath of the driver. The cost of the device — mandatory for one year — averages $1,000.
By spending 30 days in jail, Rosemary will lose her job at the clinic, along with her health insurance which would have helped to pay for the upcoming breast cancer treatments.
Needless to say, Rosemary has learned a hard lesson regarding drinking and driving — one that she will never repeat.
The week before Rosemary appeared in my court to plead on the DUI charge, a 24-year-old female student (we’ll call her Sandra) pled to her second DUI charge. Sandra was all alone in the courtroom taking responsibility for her mistake. She was sentenced to four months in jail, over $3,000 in fines and over $8,000 in jail fees. When I informed her of the jail fees, she began to cry. It will be quite a few years before she can pay off this mistake.
These are two examples of nice people who made poor choices.
Rosemary was not aware of the seriousness of the penalties that she would be facing. The general public may also be uninformed as to the extent of what happens when one is found guilty of DUI in Arizona.
If you occasionally drink and drive, consider instead paying the $20 taxi fare before you are stopped for being impaired, even to the slightest degree, and find yourself sitting in Tent City and shelling out thousands of dollars.
The campaign to prevent drunk driving has been relatively successful as the number of fatalities due to drunk driving has dropped over the last 10 years. The public is generally aware of the catastrophic results when a drunk driver kills someone. This unspeakably painful event happened close to 400 times in Arizona last year.
However, another reason not to drink and drive is the strength of the penalties for those drivers taking a chance with alcohol in their system when they are arrested and charged with DUI.
Don’t make the same mistake that Rosemary and Sandra made. It is simply not worth it.
• Mark Anderson is a judge in West Mesa Justice Court.
DeadEye posted at 2:56 pm on Thu, Jul 7, 2011.
I'd like to know if Judge Anderson has ever sent a business owner to jail for violating the laws governing the sale of alcohol to an intoxicated person? Most drunks get drunk in bars, not at home. Has the judge ever sent a person to jail for selling alcohol to a minor? The problem with alcohol related crimes goes well beyond the consumers. The sellers of Arizona's most popular legal drug need to be held just as accountable as drunk drivers. But since the sale of alcohol raises tax revenue for cities, especially party towns like Scottsdale and Tempe, why would the government want to crack down on businesses? The judge needs to take his black robe, gavel and power and got after all of the culprits, not just the drivers.
rouse2 posted at 3:33 pm on Thu, Jul 7, 2011.
the punishment has become excessive for the crime.
PoliceState posted at 3:37 pm on Thu, Jul 7, 2011.
Dear Judge Mark Anderson, what you have done, Sir, to Rosemary and her family is a tragic miscarriage of justice. Please, Kind Sir, do tell me that DUI enforcement is not why you decided to become a judge? You now serve in a state that obviates your judgement with mandatory minimum sentences and you feel compelled to editorialize "I am eunuch, hear me roar?" Yet the great irony is that you could and should have done something here, and yet you clearly did not. You describe Rosemary being pulled over in an investigative stop for drifting in her lane, most likely she was charged with violating ARS 28-729.1? Yet, Arizona case law has clearly established that drifting within a lane does not warrant an investigative traffic stop. To quote State v. Livingson, 206 Ariz. 145, "Here, the state argues that the officer witnessed objective facts that consituted a violation of 28-729(1). We do not agree. Section 28-729(1) reads, in pertinent part, as follows: If a roadway is divided into two or more clearly marked lanes for traffic, the following rules in addition to all others consistent with this section apply: 1. A person shall drive a vehicle as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane and shall not move the vehicle from that lane until the driver has first ascertained that the movement can be made with safety. (Emphasis added.) Under this statute, a driver is required to remain exclusively in a single lane only "as nearly as practicable" under the circumstances. That language demonstrates an express legislative intent to avoid penalizing brief, momentary, and minor deviations outside the marked lines." (State v. Livingston, 206 Ariz. 145) So the Mesa Police performed an unwarranted investigative stop on a nurse in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Arizona case law. The Fourth Amendment reads "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." (4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America) Because of the wrongful arrest by Mesa Police, a citizen nurse is now financially burdened and possibly far worse. Sir, are you sufficiently confused about your role in our society that you feel you can editorialize that you did nothing to help Rosemary and her family by describing how you have been castrated by Arizona DUI statutes? Please set down the knife you have been using to emasculate yourself, pick up a gavel and do what you are intended to do. Judge. We deserve nothing less than this.
Dale Whiting posted at 3:38 pm on Thu, Jul 7, 2011.
Thank you Justice of the Peace Anderson. Regarding DUI's, things are much tougher than you used to be. And we all need to hear about it.
What do you think about the inconsistence between municipalities on the duration of the yellow light and duration of the four-way red light? I see where in Chandler our yellows are pretty much uniformely 5 seconds long. But in your Mesa boundaries many are as short as 4 seconds. And entering the intersection even 0.10 ths of a second after the yellow has expired lead to a serious fine. Ought our municipalities to have a uniform standard for yellow light duration?
Dale Whiting posted at 3:41 pm on Thu, Jul 7, 2011.
DeadEye,
Justice Courts do not have jurisdiction of those sorts of issues. That would be a Superior Court matter. Superior Courts have judges who are attorneys at law. Most Justices of the Peace have no formal legal education at all.
DeadEye posted at 4:15 pm on Thu, Jul 7, 2011.
Dale,
Violations of Arizona liquor laws under Title 4 are misdemeanors and do fall under the jurisdiction of Justice of the Peace Courts and City Municipal Courts.
4-246. Violation; classification
A. A person violating any provision of this title is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor unless another classification is prescribed.
B. A person violating section 4-244, paragraph 9, 14, 34, 42 or 44 is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor.
C. A person violating sections 4-229, subsection B or 4-244, paragraph 31 is guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor.
D. In addition to any other penalty prescribed by law, the court may suspend the privilege to drive of a person under eighteen years of age for a period of up to one hundred eighty days on receiving the record of the person's first conviction for a violation of section 4-244, paragraph 9.
E. In addition to any other penalty prescribed by law, a person who is convicted of a violation of section 4-244, paragraph 42 shall pay a fine of not less than five hundred dollars.
F. In addition to any other penalty prescribed by law, a person who is convicted of a violation of section 4-241, subsection L, M or N shall pay a fine of not less than two hundred fifty dollars.
Rich posted at 9:10 am on Fri, Jul 8, 2011.
Rosemary's story doesn't sound much like justice, more like sadism. And the penalties sounds like someone is lining their pocket. This is the type of situation that demands a jury, which the 'misdemeanor' laws in Arizona bypass, primarily to profit. Legal positivism (the philosophy that the law is always right) is among the most evil and destructive philosophies in the world. The jury system was built to temper it, to fit laws to situations, even to nullify law that doesn't quite fit the circumstances. Won't do it again? Your second story sort of illustrates the possibility. In fact, the repercussions of the penalties are much more likely to drive someone into the depression and desperation that causes the problem, than it is to cure it. The law in this area has reached a level of draconian proportions and has become rapidly counter productive, well past the point of diminishing returns. Some one gets knocked, like your Rosemary, in a society with mandatory parking places in bars, happy hours and thousands of legally drunk drivers on the street nightly, they deserve a little help and understanding from their society. In the absence of a jury to provide that, the judge or justice of the peace should. I suggest, sir, that you are very, very bad at what you do, and you should, if you have any regard at all for the society you live in, resign.
RationalHuman posted at 10:44 am on Fri, Jul 8, 2011.
"$8,000 in jail fees. When I informed her of the jail fees, she began to cry. It will be quite a few years before she can pay off this mistake."
I wouldn't call $8,000 in jail fees a mistake; I would call it a CRIMINAL act to line the pockets of corrupt judges and law enforcement.
Tell us, Judge Anderson, what the "jail fees" are that you impose in illegal aliens who also clutter up our jails? (want to bet they get a free pass?)
Jerrybo posted at 5:00 pm on Sun, Jul 10, 2011.
Judges are to judge the circumstances of an accusation.and use common sense in the designation of a penalty. Anderson's job could be handled my a machine, guilty, pay here, guilty, pay here etc.. He should read the Constitution about cruel and unusual punishment. Does his playing God over someones life have anything to do with the safety of the general public, I don't think so. DWI, driving while intoxicated has been slowly replaced by lawyers with the aim of increasing their business. Levels have slowly been degraded and fines increased to the point where someone feels they must hire a lawyer to protect them from the firing squad. The modern day blind sheeple, AKA voters, let them get away with it. I agree with the DWI laws but the DUI is just a farce to reap excessive fees from the average citizen who stops for a couple beers on an excessively bad or hot day. None of Andersons victims were involved in an accident and they had no intent to be a criminal. Anderson seems quite proud of himself for ruining the lives of two normal and average women. He's a disgrace to the system but Hitler would be proud of him...
Mother posted at 10:29 am on Tue, Jul 12, 2011.
Why Rosemary and Sandra? I say we call them Sariah and Isabel.
PoliceState posted at 2:06 pm on Tue, Jul 12, 2011.
For What It's Worth
What a field day for the heat.
A thousand people in the street.
Singing songs that they're carrying signs,
Mostly say hurray for our side.
It's time we stop,
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down.
Par-a-noia strikes deep.
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid.
Step out of line, the man come and take you away.
We better stop,
Hey what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down.
We better stop,
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down.
We better stop,
Now, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down.
We better stop,
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look what's going down.
Neil Young
Buffalo Springfield
For What It's Worth