Sunset Hills, MO — Former Sunset Hills cop Christine Miller was sentenced to an 8-year prison sentence for a 2009 drunk driving crash that killed 4 people. She was off-duty and had been drinking at a bar about 1,000 feet from the Sunset Hills Police Station when the deadly accident occurred.

In December, Miller pleaded guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of 2nd degree assault. Prosecutors recommended that the judge sentence Miller to 20 years in prison. Miller’s defense attorney asked the judge to choose from the low end of the sentencing range.

The judge ordered an eight-year prison term on each manslaughter charge and seven years in prison for the assault charge, the sentences to run concurrently. Prosecutors called it “a terribly inappropriate sentence.”

Miller was driving the wrong way on the road at the time of the crash and is reported to have had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .229%, nearly three times the .08% legal limit in Missouri.

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Drunken driver sentenced to eight years for fatal crash in St. Charles County

St. Charles, MO

A former St. Charles County man was sentenced today to eight years in prison for a drunken driving crash that killed a Defiance woman.

Steven A. Hicks, 23, pleaded guilty in December of involuntary manslaughter and felony assault. He drove a pickup truck that collided with a car driven by Diane Fullkerson, 55, on Jan. 19, 2009.

Police said Hicks was eastbound on Highway DD when his truck veered off the road, then crossed into the path of Fulkerson’s car in the westbound lane. His blood-alcohol level was .225 percent, they said. Peter Adams, a passenger in Fulkerson’s car, was injured.

In exchange for Hicks’ guilty plea, prosecutors agreed not to argue against probation. As a result, assistant prosecutor Philip Groenweghe said little during today’s hearing.

Christopher B. Graville, Hicks’ attorney, asked Circuit Judge Ted House to send his client to a 120-day prison treatment program. If Hicks did well, Graville said, he then could be placed on probation. He said his client knew probation alone was not the right outcome for the case.

“He committed a very serious offense, and he took someone’s life,” Graville said. “He has to pay the consequences for that, and he realizes that.”

Graville said Hicks had moved to the Kansas City area, where he had started a treatment program.

But House said a report prepared by the state Division of Probation and Parole noted that Hicks had a long history of using various drugs and alcohol. He said Hicks started drinking around age 17, and, at one point had consumed 10 to 20 beers per night.

Hicks also admitted that he used marijuana before he pleaded guilty to the involuntary manslaughter charge and that he had been arrested for driving with a revoked license while he was out on bail.

“This is the description, Mr. Hicks, of somebody who should have gotten treatment before the offense occurred,” House said.

House sentenced Hicks to concurrent terms of eight years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter count and three years in prison for the assault count. State law requires that Hicks serve at least 85 percent of the sentence for manslaughter — a little more than six years and nine months.

Fulkerson’s husband Rod read a statement at the hearing. He said he met his wife in July 1966 while he worked at his uncle’s fireworks stand. She stayed with him through his service in the Army in Vietnam. They were married for 36 years, he said.

“I hope that for the rest of (Hick’s) life, he remembers what he did to Diane,” Rod Fulkerson said.

Rod Fulkerson said his wife was well-known for her outgoing personality as a waitress at Stefanina’s Pizzeria in Wentzville, a job she held for 19 years. The staff there chipped in for a bench on the restaurant’s patio in her honor.

Laurie Rhodes, a server at Stefanina’s, said the restaurant hasn’t been the same since Diane Fulkerson’s death.

“We just keep her alive by telling funny stories,” Rhodes said. “Sometimes we get sad, and sometimes we laugh. She’ll never be forgotten. We talk about her every day.”

Rhodes said customers used to come just to sit and talk with Diane Fulkerson.

“By the time they left, they felt great,” she said.

Missouri DWI Criminal Defense Attorney

St. Charles County, MO

A member of the St. Charles County Ambulance District Board district pleaded guilty Thursday morning of his third DWI offense in the past nine years.

Under a deal with prosecutors, Dan McLaughlin will serve no jail time. Instead, McLaughlin must perform 240 hours of community service. He also must have an ignition interlock device installed on his vehicle.

McLaughlin, 36, is a lawyer who lives in O’Fallon, Mo. He was elected to the board in April.

He was sentenced Thursday by Associate Circuit Judge Norman Steimel.

McLaughlin appeared in court with his attorney, Joel Eisenstein. McLaughlin did not make a statement to the court and he declined comment to a reporter afterward.

In addition to the community service, McLaughlin also is required to attend a victim impact panel. He also is not allowed to consume alcohol.

St. Charles MO DWI Lawyers

Kansas City, MO

A Lee’s Summit man has been convicted of second-degree murder in the deaths of a woman and her 12-year-old daughter in a drunken driving crash.

Randy Ralstin, 43, was convicted Thursday in Jackson County Court of two counts of second-degree murder, resisting arrest, leaving the scene of an accident and driving while intoxicated.

The May 12, 2008, accident killed 33-year-old Tiffany Berry, and her daughter, Suavae Rouser. Prosecutors say Ralstin’s truck hit Berry’s car head-on and Ralstin tried to run away before police arrested him.

Ralstin had been out of prison for less than six months after serving about half of a 15-year involuntary manslaughter sentence for a similar accident in 1999.

Sentencing was set for July 31.

Missouri DWI Information

Maryville, MO

A 42-year old Hopkins man was sentenced after a jury trial and conviction for driving while intoxication.

Judge Roger Prokes sentenced Randy E. Koch to 20 years in the Department of Corrections after he was previously been found guilty by a 12-member jury in October.

Judge Prokes received the Sentencing Assessment Report from the Missouri Department of Probation and Parole, which included a sentencing recommendation of ten years in prison.

Nodaway County Prosecuting Attorney David Baird argued for the maximum thirty-year sentence noting this was the defendant’s eighth alcohol-related traffic offense. Baird asked the court to sentence Koch to the maximum not only for punishment, but to keep Koch off the roadways and protect the citizens. Koch’s attorney asked the court to impose the 10-year sentence.

After receiving the Sentencing Assessment Report and hearing argument from both sides, Prokes pronounced a sentence of 20 years in prison. Koch, who has been in custody since the jury verdict, was remanded to the Nodaway County Jail for delivery to the Missouri Department of Corrections to serve the 20-year sentence.

In other court matters, Michael D. Wellington appeared in court Monday on charges of driving while intoxicated as a persistent offender and operating a motor vehicle without a drivers license.

After hearing testimony from one witness, Judge Prokes sentenced Wellington to four years in the Department of Corrections, which was suspended, 10 days shock time in the Nodaway County Jail and five years probation and on the first count. On count two he was sentenced to 30 days in the Nodaway County Jail. The 10-day shock sentence will run concurrent with the 30-day sentence. Judge Prokes further ordered a stay of execution until Jan. 15, 2009.

Kirksville, MO

A tenth driving while intoxicated (DWI) conviction has resulted in a 10-year prison sentence for a Kirksville man.

Bobbie M. Phipps Jr., 56, pleaded guilty March 4 to the felony DWI charge and was sentenced Wednesday by Adair County Circuit Judge Russell Steele.

Kirksville police arrested Phipps during a saturation patrol in the early morning hours of April 28, 2007. Adair County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Williams said grant monies from the Adair County Drug Coalition funded that saturation patrol.

Missouri felony DWI defense attorneys

Jefferson City, MO

A recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling that allows many repeat drunken drivers to avoid felony charges could result in the release of some offenders.

Because of the ruling earlier this month, prosecutors are reducing some felony charges in pending cases to misdemeanors. Defense attorneys contend the ruling also applies retroactively, meaning some people convicted of felony drunken driving should be released. Lawmakers, meanwhile, are researching the issue.

The court’s decision came in the Lafayette County case of Reginald A. Turner, 54, whose 2005 felony conviction was based on a municipal drunken-driving plea and two state convictions, the Kansas City Star reported.

At issue was an old clause near the bottom of the state’s drunken-driving law that conflicted with newer language intended to toughen penalties. The clause said that if someone received a suspended sentence after pleading guilty in municipal court to driving while intoxicated, that conviction could not be counted toward state felony charges, which prosecutors can file on a driver’s third offense.
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The Supreme Court said that if two conflicting standards exist within a criminal law, the defendant gets the lesser penalty. More >>

Missouri felony DWI defense attorneys

Jefferson City, MO

For decades, Missouri lawmakers regularly tweaked drunken-driving laws to toughen them. But along the way, they neglected to cut an old paragraph that did the opposite.

As a result, a recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling now allows many repeat drunken drivers to avoid felony charges, and it probably will allow others to get out of prison.

In Jackson County alone, prosecutors had about 145 felony cases pending against repeat drunken drivers. Now they must reduce those to misdemeanors, prosecutors said.

That means offenders will face up to a year in jail instead of up to four years in prison.

“This is not what anyone intended,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar said.

The unanimous high court decision, which involved a Lafayette County case, centered on an old clause left near the bottom of the state’s drunken-driving law since the early 1980s. Legislators have neglected to remove the clause, even when it conflicted with newer language.

Whenever two conflicting standards exist within a criminal law, the defendant gets the lesser penalty, the high court said.

The old clause said that if someone received a suspended sentence after pleading guilty in municipal court to driving while intoxicated, that conviction could not be counted toward state felony charges, which prosecutors can file on a driver’s third offense.

The court’s ruling raises questions, starting with whether the ruling must be applied retroactively. Defense lawyers say yes. Prosecutors are unsure.

But if the ruling applies to previous cases, inmates convicted of some DWI felonies will get out of prison, and thousands of people could have their old felony convictions overturned, defense lawyers say.

“The opinion has sent shock waves through the law enforcement community,” said Kanatzar, who hopes the legislature quickly can fix the law. More >>

Columbia, MO

The sentence of a Columbia woman who was drunk when she caused a car crash that killed a Columbia man in 2005 was upheld by a Missouri appellate court Tuesday.

On Feb. 24, 2006, Martha L. Miller, then 38, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in connection with a car crash that killed Richard C. Greenplate, 34, of Columbia.

Miller, who originally pleaded not guilty, changed her plea to guilty after her public defender informed her that she would be eligible for parole after serving 40 percent of her sentence, according to the appeals court’s opinion. State law requires her to serve at least 85 percent.

But the appeals court, in affirming the decision of Boone County Circuit Judge Gene Hamilton, agreed with the circuit court that Miller’s assertion that she would have stuck to her not guilty plea and risked a jury trial was “incredible.”

On Nov. 27, 2005, Miller’s 1995 Ford Explorer crossed over the center line on Broadway near Scott Boulevard and struck Greenplate’s car head-on, according to a probable cause statement. Miller’s nieces, ages 10 and 15, were in the SUV with her. They were not seriously injured.

Greenplate was pronounced dead at the scene.

Miller’s blood alcohol content was later found to be .18 percent, according to court records. The legal limit in Missouri is .08 percent. At the time of the crash, Miller’s license was suspended, and she was on an administrative alcohol suspension from a DWI conviction 17 days before the car crash. More >>

Columbia felony DWI lawyers

Platte County MO

Carl G. Lickteig, 37, of Belton, was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison for his fifth conviction in seven years on a charge of driving while intoxicated (DWI), said Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd.

Lickteig was the first Platte County DWI defendant charged as a chronic DWI offender under a state law that Zahnd urged the Missouri General Assembly to pass in 2005.

St. Louis, MO DWI Lawyers