St. Charles DWI arrest saturation patrols on Saturday night netted 14 arrests according to the Sheriff’s Department.

Half of the drivers arrested on suspicion of drunken driving also had existing warrants for their arrest outstanding on unrelated charges.

Police from St. Charles, St. Peters, O’Fallon teamed up with the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department for the effort. The DWI saturation patrol was conducted along the I-70 corridor.

Funding for the extra patrols was provided by federal grants distributed by the State of Missouri to local police agencies. The stated purpose of the DWI enforcement saturation patrol was to discourage drunken driving.

Experienced St. Charles, MO DWI Lawyer – Criminal Defense Attorney

DWI saturation patrols are planned to catch drunken drivers this Saturday night in St. Charles County.  Sheriffs and police officers from St. Charles (City and County), O’Fallon and St. Peters will participate in the effort.  Twenty vehicles will be.

The saturation patrol will be funded by a federal grant to discourage driving while intoxicated.  DWI checkpoints will not be used in Saturday night’s law enforcement.

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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.

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St. Charles, MO

St. Charles County Sheriff’s Lt. Craig McGuire called today with the results of this weekend’s DWI saturation patrol.

McGuire said 20 officers from the sheriff’s department, the Missouri Highway Patrol and the St. Peters, St. Charles, O’Fallon and Cottleville police departments worked overtime shifts patrolling the eastern half of St. Charles County between 10 p.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. Sunday. The patrol area included O’Fallon and Dardenne Prairie, McGuire said.

Officers made 24 arrests, McGuire said. Of those:

* 20 were for driving while intoxicated.
* Three were for people wanted on outstanding warrants.
* One was for minor in possession of alcohol.

Also, McGuire said, officers wrote 27 tickets for other driving violations.

Sheriff’s Cpl. Travis Jones said officers did not seek warrants to draw blood, although three motorists refused blood-alcohol tests.

Jones also updated the cost for the operation. He said his original estimate of $1,600 was only for the sheriff’s department. He said the estimated overtime cost for all officers was closer to $2,600, which will be covered by federal grant money.

Jones said the ages of people arrested — except for the minor in possession charge — ranged from 23 to 48.

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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

St. Charles, MO

Dan McLaughlin, a newly elected county ambulance board member, is facing renewed pressure to give up his seat after officials learned of a third drunken driving charge against him.

Veteran board member Michael Garman said Wednesday he will call for McLaughlin’s resignation because of a guilty plea for impaired driving in Michigan in 1998.

Last week Garman said that McLaughlin’s guilty plea in 2002 for drunken driving and a pending DWI case from 2007 were an embarrassment to an agency that regularly preaches sober driving and deals with the aftermath of those who don’t heed the message.

“The third charge within a 10-year period — that’s just not setting the right example,” Garman said Wednesday.

Garman said he knows that legally, he can’t force McLaughlin from office, but he plans to ask for McLaughlin to step down at Wednesday’s board meeting.

McLaughlin, 36, a lawyer who lives in St. Peters, could not be reached for comment. His attorney on his current charge, Joel Eisenstein, said he was not aware of the Michigan case.

Eisenstein said information about McLaughlin’s most recent DWI charge was known during the election, but voters still elected him.

“Mr. McLaughlin’s opponents seem to carry a grudge,” he said.

In the 2007 case, McLaughlin was charged after being stopped on Highway 40 in O’Fallon, Mo. His blood-alcohol content was 0.167 percent, twice the legal threshold for drunken driving.

In the Michigan case, court records obtained by the Post-Dispatch show McLaughlin was charged with drunken driving in April 1998 in Meridian, outside of Lansing. McLaughlin’s license was suspended for 90 days after he pleaded guilty in July 1998 to a less serious charge of driving while impaired. The police report on his blood-alcohol level was not available Wednesday, but at the time of the arrest, Michigan’s legal limit for drunken driving was 0.10 percent.

In Missouri, a two-time offender who gets a third DWI could be charged with a felony. St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas said he did not know about the Michigan arrest earlier, although the prosecutor’s office does routinely check for additional charges in Missouri.

Because McLaughlin got a suspended sentence in his 2002 DWI in Chesterfield municipal court, Banas says he cannot increase McLaughlin’s pending charge to a felony. Felons cannot hold public office until they’ve completed their sentence.

After pleading guilty to misdemeanor DWI, McLaughlin completed one year of probation and the charge was removed from his public record.

The maximum sentence Banas likely would be able to seek in the current case would be six months in the county jail.

Banas expressed frustration with the more than 20 delays and four judge changes in the case, adding that “it was batted around like a football.”

Some of those delays and changes occurred because of a potential conflict with McLaughlin’s job as a lawyer, or because McLaughlin’s attorney asked for a different judge. The next hearing is set for Aug. 6.

On Wednesday, Michael Boland, a spokesman for the Gateway Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, reiterated his call for McLaughlin to step down. He also criticized delays in the case and suspended sentences in DWI cases.

“The legislators as well as the judges need to clean up some of these loopholes,” he said. “The only way that the American public becomes safe is that we adhere to the laws that are written, and obviously we don’t.”

McLaughlin was backed in the April election by several groups, including the International Association of Firefighters, Local 2665, which represents the paramedics in the St. Charles County Ambulance District. Another endorsement was given by the St. Charles County Deputy Sheriff’s Association. Spokesmen for those groups could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Two other board members are divided on whether McLaughlin should continue to serve.

Vivian Kaesser said she wants to do whatever is best for the district. “I think he needs to resign, but according to state law he doesn’t have to,” she said.

Mark Fenton said that until he learns of a policy that would bar McLaughlin from the board, he would “look forward to his continued service.”

The other board members — Joan Peery and Matthew Simmons — could not be reached for comment.

Garman said he hadn’t discussed his plans with any of the board members, but he said McLaughlin’s arrests had shown a pattern of irresponsibility.

“That’s not what the St. Charles County Ambulance District is about,” he said.

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Lake St. Louis, MO

Lake Saint Louis police will increase enforcement this Fourth of July weekend when it comes to stopping impaired motorists and boaters.

“We are working with other criminal justice agencies to protect Lake Saint Louis citizens from impaired drivers,” Police Chief Michael Force said in a release. “We will patrol area roadways and lakes to arrest impaired drivers and will do everything we can to see that they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

At a minimum, impaired drivers could lose their license and face high fines and court costs in addition to attorney fees, Force said. At the worst, they could go to jail for vehicular manslaughter or homicide, he added.

“Our goal is to prevent that from happening,” Force said.

The Lake Saint Louis Community Association Water Patrol and the Lake Saint Louis Police Department have partnered to address the issue of intoxicated boaters on the city’s lakes, Force said in a release. This partnership will place police officers alongside Water Patrol authorities to target intoxicated boaters.

St. Charles, MO DWI Defense Lawyers

St. Charles, MO

Police in St. Charles County are drawing a new weapon in their fight to stop drunk drivers — blood testing.

On Thursday night, about two dozen officers from several area police departments are holding what they’re calling a “no refusal” checkpoint to catch impaired drivers.

From 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., police will stop all drivers at a busy intersection near Interstate 70, the city’s Main Street corridor and the Ameristar Casino. If those arrested on suspicion of driving drunk refuse an officer’s request for a breath test, police plan to get on-the-spot court orders for blood tests from a nearby on-call prosecutor and circuit judge.

Though the approach has already been tested in at least three other states, police say this style of checkpoint combining the “no refusal” element may be the first of its kind in Missouri. Police and advocates for tougher enforcement hope the effort adds muscle to a criminal justice system that often fails to keep drunk drivers off the roads.

“Having the blood or breath result is an essential part of DWI enforcement,” said St. Charles County sheriff’s Deputy Travis Jones, who is organizing the checkpoint. “We just want to go through a night with no fatalities or serious wrecks.”

Over the past two months, at least 10 people have been killed in the St. Louis area by suspected drunk drivers, some of whom had prior DWI convictions.

Experts say it’s legal to require blood tests from drivers arrested for DWI. Most states, including Missouri and Illinois, have implied consent laws that mandate breath, blood, saliva or urine samples if asked by a police officer.

Once arrested, drivers who refuse the tests risk losing their licenses for up to a year.

DWI checkpoints with mandatory blood tests raise civil liberties concerns, said Tony Rothert, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

“That anyone who happens to be driving through St. Charles could be stopped and have their blood forcibly removed from them does seem to me like the government is overreaching,” he said.

Travis Noble, a Clayton DWI lawyer, questioned whether the practice provides judges enough information to reasonably issue police warrants for blood tests.

“I think a judge would need to be very cautious,” Noble said.

Police in more rural areas, such as Franklin, Lincoln and Warren counties, regularly seek warrants for blood tests in DWI cases even if it means waking prosecutors and judges late at night. But in busier, more populated areas, police typically request warrants for blood only in the most serious cases.

“It’s been a very effective tool for prosecuting DWI,” Warren County Prosecutor Mike Wright said.

And the tactic appears to be catching on locally, with a checkpoint similar to the one in St. Charles planned this weekend in Franklin County, and two more in St. Charles County next month.

“You can have blood drawn even if you don’t want your blood drawn.” said Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University.

St. Charles, MO

UPDATE 6:24 p.m.

A jury found Anthony Roberson guilty of driving while intoxicated. The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about three hours and returned to the courtroom about 6:15 p.m.

Circuit Judge Ted House set a sentencing date of May 29. He ordered Roberson taken into custody in lieu of $250,000 cash bail.

EARLIER STORY:

Jurors retired at 3:16 p.m. to decide whether a St. Charles County man was driving drunk in February 2006.

Anthony P. Roberson, 45, of the first block of Highfield Court, was charged as a chronic DWI offender. His history includes a fatal crash that killed two teens in 1979. If he is found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

Jurors do no know about Roberson’s prior convictions for driving and boating while intoxicated. Instead, they were presented with testimony from police officers and a defense witness who said he was with Roberson before his arrest on the night of Feb. 24, 2006.

Jason Gray, an off-duty St. Peters officer, testified that he called dispatch that night after seeing Roberson’s truck driving erratically on Mid Rivers Mall Drive. Another officer stopped Roberson’s truck on Central School Road, and three other officers witnessed Roberson after the stop.

Officer Daniel Plumb gave Roberson three field sobriety tests. He testified that Roberson failed all three tests.

Plumb took Roberson back to police department headquarters and asked him to take a breath test. He said Roberson put his lips on the breathalyzer but did not blow into it properly. He said Roberson cursed and was belligerent when he warned him more than once that failing to complete the test would amount to a refusal that could result in having his license suspended.

Plumb and other officers said Roberson smelled strongly of alcohol, staggered when he walked, spoke with slurred speech and had glassy and bloodshot eyes. Officer Anthony Altman, who was in training at the time, said it was obvious Roberson was drunk.

Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum cross examined Plumb for several hours Thursday afternoon. Under Rosenblum’s questioning, Plumb said the field sobriety tests were not done exactly as recommended by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Rosenblum also called a witness, Steve J. Weiss, 29, who said he was working on a boat with Roberson on the night of Feb. 24. He said he did not see Roberson drinking that night, and they worked from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Matthew Fry, another of Roberson’s defense attorneys, had said during opening statements that Roberson might have had symptoms similar to intoxication because of fumes from the boat work.

Weiss testified that he had a headache and felt dizzy after he returned home from working on the boat.

Assistant prosecutor Philip Groenweghe questioned Weiss about conflicting statements regarding whether or not Roberson was wearing a mask that night. He also questioned whether Weiss knew for sure he had been with Roberson on the night in question or on another night.

Groenweghe referred in closing arguments to an audio tape taken by Plumb at the scene. When Plumb asked Roberson how much he had had to drink that night, Roberson replied: “I don’t know.”

Closing arguments took a full 90 minutes. Rosenblum said jurors should have questions about the way the field tests were done and a video tape of Roberson at police headquarters that was destroyed. He said officers decided immediately that Roberson was drunk, and they changed their stories to fit the prosecution’s theories.

“You have to have questions about this evidence,” he said.

“Have (those questions) on this day,” Rosenblum said. That’s Tony Roberson’s only day. Tomorrow is too late.”

Groenweghe said the evidence that Roberson was drunk was overwhelming. Five police officers saw Roberson intoxicated that night, he said, and he asked jurors to find Roberson guilty.

“People that drive down Mid Rivers Mall Drive have a right to drive down Mid Rivers Mall Drive without being sideswiped by a drunk,” he said.

St. Charles, MO

St. Peters police officers spent a lot of time on the stand testifying today as a chronic DWI offender’s trial continued.

Anthony P. Roberson, 45, of the first block of Highfield Court in St. Charles County, is accused of driving while intoxicated on the night of Feb. 24, 2006. An off-duty police officer reported seeing Roberson driving erratically, and officers pulled him over on Central School Road.

As Susan Weich reported in an earlier blog posting, Roberson killed two people in a drunken driving crash in 1979 when he was just 16. Since then he has racked up five more alcohol-related convictions and one for operating a boat while intoxicated.

Prosecutors have charged him as a chronic offender, which means he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if the jury finds him guilty.

Officers took Roberson to the police department and asked him to take a breathalyzer test. They said Roberson put his lips on the breathalyzer, but he did not blow into the machine. No breath or blood alcohol measurement exists.

That means the evidence in the case so far has focused on field sobriety tests administered by Officer Daniel Plumb.

He gave Roberson three tests. One required Roberson to follow a pen with his eyes. One required him to stand on one leg, and one required him to walk heel-to-toe in a line, turn around and walk back.

Plumb said Roberson failed all three tests, and he and other officers said they smelled a strong odor of alcohol coming from Roberson.

Roberson’s attorney, Scott Rosenblum, spent hours today questioning Plumb about the tests, and Plumb testified that the validity of the field tests could be questioned because not all procedures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were followed.

Assistant prosecutor Philip Groenweghe, though, asked Plumb and other officers if they thought Roberson was intoxicated. They said he was.

The defense is expected to present its evidence Friday. Matthew Fry, another of Roberson’s attorneys, has said his client was working to restore a fiberglass boat at his repair shop the night he was stopped. Fry said the fumes from chemicals he was using might have caused symptoms similar to intoxication.

Groenweghe asked officers today if they recalled smelling anything other than alcohol on Roberson. They said they did not.