Tennessee Man Pleads Guilty to Four DUI Fatalities
As 2015 gets underway, an increase in fatalities due to drunken driving has lawmakers across the country increase their efforts to enforce harsher penalties for drunken driving.
Tennessee man commits DUI manslaughter and pleads guilty
On Christmas Eve in 2011 a drunken man named Davis Brooks, 41, was arrested on charges that included vehicular homicide. He pled guilty to charges brought against him, which included four counts of DUI manslaughter.
The convicted man was speeding with a blood alcohol level of .26, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed his Chevy Silverado into the back of a Chevy Impala that night. The accident took place on Raleigh Millington Road on the Loosahatchie Bridge. The impact of the collision moved the Impala on to the path of an oncoming Ford F-150 pickup, killing all four adult women in the Impala.
According to police reports, two sisters, Tarla Fisher and Shirley Watkins, along with their neice Crystal Hill and friend Marjorie Tucker were the occupants of the Impala. Two men in the Ford pickup, James Reece and Luke McElravey, were seriously injured but survived.
At the site of the accident, Brooks was aggressive and gave the officers a false driver’s license as his ID. The real owner of the license, Lenard Robinson Jr., 38, said that he had lost his license but had replaced it since then. Brooks, who is wanted in three other counties, faces 12-20 years for each vehicular homicide; 6-10 years for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; 4-8 years for identity theft and fraud; and up to one year for driving with a suspended license.
Some people believe Brooks should lose his life of this tragedy.
Washington lawmakers want to harsher DUI penalties
Lawmakers of the state want to make DUI laws stricter by making a driver’s fourth DUI offense committed within 10 years a felony. According to drunk driving accident attorneys, under the current law, felony charges can be made only for the fifth DUI offense in 10 years.
According to R-Spoke Valley Sen. Mike Padden, the author of the bill, Washington has the weakest law in 45 states for repeat DUI offenders. The bill had previously raised concerns about the cost of imprisoning a higher number of felons arising from DUI offenses. But Sen. Padden thinks this year the bill has a better chance since some of the Senate Democrats have agreed to sponsor the bill.
Bill 5105 will get a public hearing on Thursday from several victims of DUI crashes.
Family wants DUI laws to be reformed after losing their teenaged daughter
In other DUI related news, 38 year old Elizabeth Lang was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Tehama County judge for DUI and vehicular homicide after causing a fatal accident that killed 18-year old Shea Smith. Drunk driving accident attorneys for the defendant presented her case to the judge but were unable to reduce the sentence.
The victim’s families are advocating the introduction of new and stricter laws in California to deter drunken driving but do they know that police in California hand out DUI tickets to drivers who do not deserve them because the state is destitute? They find the 10 year sentence insufficient and want the law to be harsher for such offenders and they are probably right since a fatality by a drunk driver is horrendous.
