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Drunk Drivers in the Courts: Legal and Extra-Legal Factors Affecting Pleas and Sentences

NCJ Number
168482
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 25 Issue: 2 Dated: 1997 Pages: 155-163
Author(s)
J Meyer; T Gray
Date Published
1997
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This study examined the extent to which the pleas and sentences of drunk drivers are influenced by legal factors such as offense severity and prior offenses compared to extralegal factors such as race and gender.
Abstract
The study was based on direct observations of arraignments in municipal courtrooms throughout a metropolitan county in southern California during a 7-month period in 1993. Direct courtroom observation allowed for the collection of information that might be lost by the incomplete record-keeping system in the lower courts. The sample included 200 defendants arraigned for driving under the influence. The majority of defendants (87 percent) were male. A nearly equal number were Caucasian (47 percent) or Hispanic (46 percent); the remainder were Asian (5 percent), African American (2 percent), Middle-Eastern (n=1), and American Indian (n=1). Only 8 percent of the defendants (n=11) had prior drunk driving records. One-half of the defendants (n=100), however, faced charges in addition to that of driving under the influence, and one-half of those (n=50) faced more than one additional charge. The findings show that guilty pleas and sentences were based most heavily on offense severity. Pleas also were based on ethnicity, with Caucasians more than twice as likely to plead not guilty. Although judges often fail to impose mandatory sentences, the judges in this sample always imposed mandatory sentences on drunk drivers. Although not conclusive, these results suggest that differences between ethnic groups may be based in part on the choices they make while entangled in the justice system. Suggestions for further research are offered. 2 tables, 12 notes, and 34 references