Joe Angel Garcia wore a helmet to guard a gap in his cranium. On his wrist was a bracelet that mentioned: “Fall Threat.”
Assisted by two bodily therapists, he slowly climbed a small set of stairs at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital of San Antonio, gripping the facet rails intently.
On the high of the seven steps hung a bell for Garcia to ring if he made all of it the way in which up.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered, stopping midway.
“Push, push, push, push,” urged Rob Reiffert, considered one of his therapists.
With nice effort, Garcia reached the highest. However a refrain of “Ring the bell!” didn’t persuade him to announce his success.
“He doesn’t like consideration,” mentioned Sarah Martini, his occupational therapist.
A little bit over a yr in the past, Garcia, 43, was a wisecracking, hardworking business truck driver. That was earlier than a drunken driver in a three-ton Lincoln Aviator reduce in entrance of Garcia’s Harley Davidson at an intersection on the South Facet.
Garcia’s bike was decreased to “confetti,” his spouse recalled, and regardless that he was carrying a helmet, he suffered a traumatic mind damage, together with a lacerated aorta, lung injury and damaged bones.
The motive force of the posh SUV, Lorenzo Caltzontzi-Jimenez, escaped with bruises on his forearms. Police discovered him hiding in a close-by ditch, “closely intoxicated,” in accordance with a police report. His blood alcohol focus, or BAC, was measured .176 — greater than twice the authorized restrict.
It was the third time Caltzontzi-Jimenez had been arrested on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated.
Lorenzo Caltzontzi-Jimenez speaks along with his lawyer, Eduardo Garcia, earlier than a listening to in Bexar County courtroom. On Sept. 19, 2021, Caltzontzi-Jimenez was driving whereas drunk when he crashed a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into a motorbike pushed by Joe Angel Garcia. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents. Caltzontzi-Jimenez escaped with bruises on his forearms. He pleaded responsible to intoxication assault and was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
Lorenzo Caltzontzi-Jimenez speaks along with his lawyer, Eduardo Garcia, earlier than a listening to in Bexar County courtroom. On Sept. 19, 2021, Caltzontzi-Jimenez was driving whereas drunk when he crashed a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into a motorbike pushed by Joe Angel Garcia. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents. Caltzontzi-Jimenez escaped with bruises on his forearms. He pleaded responsible to intoxication assault and was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
Lorenzo Caltzontzi-Jimenez speaks along with his lawyer, Eduardo Garcia, earlier than a listening to in Bexar County courtroom. On Sept. 19, 2021, Caltzontzi-Jimenez was driving whereas drunk when he crashed a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into a motorbike pushed by Joe Angel Garcia. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents. Caltzontzi-Jimenez escaped with bruises on his forearms. He pleaded responsible to intoxication assault and was sentenced to 5 years in jail. (Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-Information)
The primary time, in 2016, he plea-bargained the cost all the way down to “obstructing a highway-intoxication,” a misdemeanor. Consequently, his second DWI arrest in 2019 counted as his first, sparing him the longer jail time period, year-long license suspension and different penalties reserved for repeat offenders.
Even so, as a result of his BAC was above .15 — a stage referred to as “excessive intoxication” — Caltzontzi-Jimenez confronted “enhanced” punishment, together with a requirement that he set up a tool on his automobile to check his breath for alcohol earlier than he might drive.
He dodged these restrictions by reducing a deal — once more. This time, he pleaded responsible to easy DWI. The sentence? Thirty-four days in jail.
That’s how he was in a position to get again on the highway and do it once more.
Garcia paid the worth. He was the sufferer of an entrenched tradition of leniency towards DWI offenders in Bexar County’s prison justice system, an Specific-Information investigation discovered. It goes again a minimum of a decade and a half and has allowed 1000’s of people that drove drunk to flee sanctions supposed to maintain them off the highway.
‘They’re not taken significantly’
It is a carousel. Use Subsequent and Earlier buttons to navigate
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, takes a break throughout rehab at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into his bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “The after-effects of it are catastrophic,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be.”
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
The child-gloves remedy of drunken drivers was institutionalized in 2008, ostensibly with the most effective of intentions. Then-Bexar County District Lawyer Susan Reed launched a program to present first-time offenders a recent begin and an opportunity to keep away from the stigma of a DWI conviction. She gave it a stern-sounding title: “Take Accountability.”
Underneath this system, individuals who weren’t extremely intoxicated when arrested and had no earlier DWI arrests might plead responsible to the lesser cost of obstructing a freeway. They needed to stay on probation for a yr or extra, and for a minimum of six months that they had to make use of an ignition-interlock system, which required them to take a breath check earlier than beginning their automobile’s engine.
In the event that they lived as much as these phrases, they may go forth and not using a DWI on their data.
“Let’s strive to not destroy somebody’s livelihood and their insurance coverage and their household and their economics, as a result of a DWI might be so damaging,” Reed mentioned in a latest interview, explaining the rationale behind this system.
The principles had been strict, a minimum of on paper. Solely first-time offenders had been eligible. Nobody whose BAC was .15 or above might take part. Anybody who had brought about an accident whereas driving drunk was mechanically excluded.
Blood alcohol focus is the extent of alcohol in an individual’s physique measured in grams per deciliter. BAC rises when an individual drinks sooner than the liver can filter out alcohol.
What’s the authorized restrict?
It is unlawful to drive with a BAC of .08 or greater in Texas and all different states. At .08, a driver is 4 instances extra prone to crash than a sober driver. At .15, generally referred to as “excessive intoxication,” more durable penalties kick in, together with longer jail phrases and license suspensions. A driver with a BAC of .15 or greater is a minimum of 12 instances extra prone to crash than a sober driver.
What number of drinks does it take to push you over the authorized restrict?
It is difficult. Two folks can drink the identical quantity and have completely different BACs. Blood alcohol focus varies relying on weight, age, gender, physique fats, how a lot you’ve got eaten, what medicines you are on and plenty of different components.
That mentioned, authorities companies and medical establishments have developed estimates primarily based on the variety of “customary drinks” consumed in a single hour. A normal drink is a 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.
A 180-pound man would attain a BAC of .08 after three to 4 customary drinks in an hour. Seven drinks would push the identical particular person over .15.
A 140-pound girl can be at or close to .08 after two to a few drinks in an hour and above .15 after 5 or 6 drinks.
What are the consequences of alcohol at completely different BAC ranges?
- .02 – Altered temper, slight lack of judgment
- .05 – Decreased alertness
- .07 – Delicate impairment of speech, imaginative and prescient, stability
- .08 – Impaired judgment, reasoning, depth notion and peripheral imaginative and prescient
- .10 – Decreased response time, slurred speech, slowed considering
- .13 – Gross impairment of motor management, blurred imaginative and prescient, lack of stability
- .15 or greater – Nausea, vomiting, lack of muscle management, confusion, drowsiness
SOURCES: Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Fee, Texas Penal Code, Vaden Well being Companies at Stanford College, Cleveland Clinic, College of Toledo
However what may need made sense in idea was subverted in observe. To deal with towering caseloads, prosecutors started to supply the “Take Accountability” deal extra liberally than Reed ever supposed.
Drivers who weren’t purported to be eligible for this system dodged DWI convictions by pleading to obstructing a freeway — together with folks whose BAC was above .15 and a few who had brought about accidents.
Briefly, 1000’s of drunken drivers have used “Take Accountability” to keep away from doing exactly that.
Reed left workplace in 2015, however this system remained in pressure below her two successors — Nico LaHood and incumbent Joe D. Gonzales — and it continues to today.
To doc the influence of “Take Accountability,” the Specific-Information analyzed Bexar County courtroom data from January 2009 — this system’s first full yr — to January 2022.
Here is what we discovered:
Some 69,000 folks had been charged with a
DWI-related offense
throughout that 13-year-period, the data present.
Greater than 19,000 of them — 28 % — had their fees downgraded to
obstructing a freeway.
Of these whose fees had been decreased, one in 4 — practically 5,000 folks — had been granted leniency regardless that their
blood alcohol concentrations had been greater than .15,
the brink for excessive intoxication.
The Specific-Information evaluation additionally discovered that 1,900 folks whose DWI fees had been downgraded – 10 % of the entire –
had been later arrested once more for drunk driving.
“I arrived right here, and this was the tradition,” mentioned Choose Yolanda Huff, who has presided over Bexar County Courtroom at Legislation 12 since 2018. “It’s this tradition that we shouldn’t be too imply taking a look at a DWI. They’re not taken significantly. And that’s simply what I see again and again. I simply can not fathom why we aren’t doing extra — as a judiciary, why we aren’t doing extra?”
“I simply didn’t notice till I took the bench how big an issue it’s for Bexar County,” the choose added. “Psychological well being and home violence are attractive, trending points, proper? No person’s speaking about DWIs.”
Alcohol-related crashes and fatalities in San Antonio have declined barely on a per-capita foundation during the last decade. But they proceed to take a heavy toll, inflicting a mean of 53 deaths per yr since 2010, in accordance with information from the Texas Division of Transportation.
In 2021, drunken drivers brought about practically 2,000 crashes in San Antonio, killing 57 folks and significantly injuring 107.
Choose John Longoria, who presides over County Courtroom at Legislation 5, mentioned prosecutors typically drastically discount down DWI fees due to the sheer quantity of circumstances, a scenario he referred to as “a disaster.”
“They cut back the hell out of them,” Longoria mentioned. “A complete lot of them. It’s not good. It bothers me as a result of every considered one of these DWIs, particularly what they name ‘excessive intox,’ .15 or greater — that’s this shut to killing any individual.”
To Longoria’s level: A statistical snapshot from earlier this yr confirmed that 4,431 first-time DWI circumstances had been pending within the county’s misdemeanor courts, together with 6,875 “fugitive” circumstances towards DWI defendants who failed to seem for hearings.
DA Gonzales took exception to “the judges’ feedback that we don’t take DWIs significantly.” He mentioned, “I feel the resolutions bear out that we do.”
On the identical time, Gonzales acknowledged {that a} glut of DWI circumstances and different obstacles — notably difficulties finding witnesses and making certain their look at trial — can spur prosecutors to chop their losses and provide plea offers.
“Simply since you’ve obtained a case the place on paper you’ve obtained a .16, it doesn’t imply it’s the way in which it’s going to end up in trial,” he mentioned. “As a result of a whole lot of instances, after we begin preparing for trial and we begin contacting witnesses, whether or not that’s the lay witnesses or the officer witnesses, then a case can rapidly go south.”
Usually, when a witness can’t be positioned or isn’t out there, “we go to the choose and ask for a continuance, and the choose goes, ‘Nope, we’re selecting a jury in an hour, you get your witness down right here,’” Gonzales mentioned.
“So, at that time, our prosecutors need to decide about find out how to resolve the case slightly than outright dismiss it. And generally, even all the way in which all the way down to an obstruction is an inexpensive compromise,” he mentioned.
Reed, now a visiting choose within the state courts, mentioned that was not her intent in beginning “Take Accountability.”
“It wasn’t meant to encourage plea bargaining,” she mentioned. “It was actually meant as a rehabilitative kind of program. It was not about, ‘If we don’t have a robust case.’ That’s our downside.”
‘He might not make it’
In just a few circumstances, individuals who prevented DWI convictions by way of “Take Accountability” not solely drove drunk once more — they brought about accidents to different folks.
The crash that altered the lifetime of Garcia, the business trucker, is a chilling instance.
He was using residence on his Harley Davidson Highway Glide Particular on the night time of Sept. 19, 2021, when Caltzontzi-Jimenez, the SUV driver, reduce in entrance of him on the intersection of South Flores Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue, simply west of Stinson Municipal Airport.
Garcia barely survived.
“Each surgical procedure, each second, it was like, ‘He might not make it,’” recalled his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo.
She cared for her bed-ridden husband at residence for months till he certified for a state-funded program for victims of traumatic mind accidents, which despatched him to Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital.
Caltzontzi-Jimenez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was not in a position to reduce a deal this time. He pleaded responsible to intoxication assault, a felony, and was sentenced to 5 years in jail. Immigration and Customs Enforcement positioned a detainer on him so it will probably take custody of him when he completes his sentence. At that time, he seemingly will probably be deported.
Guajardo, 37, mentioned she and her husband are vulnerable to dropping their South Facet residence now that Garcia can’t work.
The intersection the place Garcia was nearly killed isn’t removed from their home. In actual fact, it’s on Guajardo’s technique to work — on the Texas Division of Motor Autos.
“I might go one other route, however I select to not as a result of I don’t need it to regulate me,” she mentioned. “And it’s (expletive) laborious.”
‘Guidelines for the chumps’
“Obstructing Freeway or different Passageway” is a part of Title 9, Chapter 42, of the Texas Penal Code, a piece coping with disorderly conduct and associated offenses. It’s a Class B misdemeanor to dam a freeway, avenue, sidewalk, railway, elevator or different public right-of-way.
Years in the past, protection attorneys and prosecutors engaged in plea bargaining over DWI circumstances mounted on this obscure offense in its place, lesser cost. The penalties are a lot lighter than for DWI, and there’s little or no stigma. Reed integrated obstructing a freeway into “Take Accountability,” with guidelines supposed to restrict its use.
But nearly from the start, these guidelines had been no match for the day-to-day actuality of crowded courtroom dockets, overburdened DAs and protection attorneys trying to get the most effective outcomes for his or her shoppers.
“Susan Reed, she introduced that program, and it wasn’t two weeks earlier than we began getting exceptions,” mentioned Joseph Hoelscher, a San Antonio lawyer who handles drunken driving circumstances and who wrote a textbook on Texas DWI legal guidelines.
“These guidelines had been guidelines for the chumps,” he mentioned.
For example, “Take Accountability” was purported to be off the desk for any DWI defendant with a BAC of .15 or greater.
That modified after LaHood succeeded Reed as DA in 2015.
“As soon as the Nico administration began, we had much more liberty in permitting the over .15,” recalled Emily McCready Angulo, a profession prosecutor who has served below Reed, LaHood and Gonzales and is now chief of the DA’s grand jury and consumption division.
LaHood, now a protection lawyer in non-public observe, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Reed additionally needed individuals to need to plead to “obstructing a highway-intoxication” — a cost she devised by including the phrase intoxication to the present misdemeanor offense. That method, the defendants’ data would replicate an offense involving alcohol, even when not one with the career-wrecking gravity of a DWI.
However prosecutors started to discount that away in plea negotiations, permitting offenders to plead to obstructing a freeway, minus the “intoxication.”
The Specific-Information evaluation recognized greater than 3,500 individuals who acquired that additional profit. They made up 18 % of all DWI defendants whose fees had been downgraded to obstructing a freeway from 2009-2022.
Gonzales succeeded LaHood in January 2019. In October of the next yr, he despatched a memo to prosecutors clarifying once they might permit DWI defendants to plead to obstructing a freeway.
The factors had been the identical as Reed had laid down greater than a decade earlier.
Gonzales wrote that the decreased cost was acceptable when:
- “The defendant doesn’t have a previous conviction or deferred adjudication for DWI or Obstruction of a Freeway;
- “The BAC is below .15 (and);
- “There isn’t a accident.”
Any deviation from these guidelines required a supervisor’s approval, the memo mentioned.
By the tip of 2021 — 14 months after Gonzales clarified his coverage — DWI suspects in Bexar County had pleaded to obstructing a freeway in 490 circumstances. In 169 of them — about 35 % — the motive force’s BAC was over .15, courtroom data present.
“I don’t know that we’ve taken a tough take a look at that,” mentioned Christian Henricksen, chief of litigation within the DA’s workplace, when requested for touch upon the info. “However once I’ve seen that occur, most frequently, once I’m personally conscious of it, it’s often somebody who’s like .16. Like, simply barely over.”
‘Lower than a slap on the wrist’
San Antonio Police Officer William Kasberg has some recommendation for anybody who’s out on a freeway late at night time.
“After 10 o’clock at night time, by no means drive within the quick lane,” he mentioned.
Jimmy Chittenden was significantly injured when his then-girlfriend, Sydney Recker, crashed into a piece convoy on U.S. 281 in Might 2017. Recker’s blood alcohol focus was measured at .16, twice the authorized restrict. She was charged with intoxication assault, a felony, however bargained the cost all the way down to obstructing a freeway, a misdemeanor. The cost was dismissed after she served two years of probation. “There have been no repercussions for her — lower than a slap on the wrist,” mentioned Chittenden’s sister, Alysha Clark.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-InformationThat left-most lane is the one favored by drunken drivers touring within the improper course, a typical explanation for accidents and deaths in San Antonio, mentioned Kasberg, a member of SAPD’s DWI unit for the previous 4 years.
“There’s a huge tradition that includes alcohol,” he mentioned.
Jimmy Chittenden is aware of the darkish facet of that tradition.
He and his then-girlfriend, Sydney Recker, had been driving on U.S. 281 after midnight on Might 23, 2017. Recker was behind the wheel when the automobile crashed into the again of a piece convoy stopped on the freeway.
The automobile was crumpled and nonetheless smoking when police reached the scene.
Recker had a BAC of .16, courtroom data present. She was not significantly injured. However Chittenden was trapped contained in the crushed automobile with extreme accidents, together with “an apparent damaged proper leg with a bone protruding out,” a police report mentioned.
“My femur popped out of my hip backwards,” recalled Chittenden, now 30 and a machine operator at an Amazon warehouse in Forney, simply outdoors Dallas. “I bear in mind the jaws of life, after which I simply wakened within the hospital. They’d a rod by way of my leg.”
Recker, then 20, was arrested and booked on a felony cost of intoxication assault.
Chittenden advised prosecutors he didn’t wish to press fees towards Recker, partly as a result of her mom, Shannon Jones, a supervisor within the Bexar County Grownup Probation Division, was paying the couple’s lease and his medical payments.
Later, after Chittenden and Recker ended their relationship, he simply needed to neglect her. He mentioned he advised the DA’s workplace: “I don’t wish to stay by way of that day or be part of something together with her ever once more.”
By way of plea bargaining, the felony cost of intoxication assault towards Recker was knocked all the way down to a misdemeanor DWI. The prosecutor later opted to waive even the decreased cost and “proceed on obstruction,” in accordance with courtroom data.
Recker pleaded responsible to obstructing a freeway, with no point out of “intoxication.” She was sentenced to 2 years of deferred adjudication, a type of probation that ends in a dismissal if its circumstances are met. Final yr, all fees associated to the incident had been tossed.
“There have been no repercussions for her — lower than a slap on the wrist,” mentioned Alysha Clark, Chittenden’s sister.
Jimmy Chittenden, proven with son Elliott and spouse Ciana, was significantly injured when his then-girlfriend, Sydney Recker, crashed into a piece convoy on U.S. 281 in Might 2017. Recker’s blood alcohol focus was measured at .16, twice the authorized restrict. She was charged with intoxication assault, a felony, however bargained the cost all the way down to obstructing a freeway, a misdemeanor. The cost was dismissed after she served two years of probation. “There have been no repercussions for her — lower than a slap on the wrist,” mentioned Chittenden’s sister, Alysha Clark.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-InformationAs for Chittenden, “he was injured so badly that he actually doesn’t stroll proper anymore,” Clark mentioned.
Recker’s lawyer, Therese Huntzinger, a former high-ranking prosecutor within the Bexar County DA’s workplace, declined to remark. Recker didn’t reply to messages looking for remark.
District Lawyer Gonzales defended the plea deal.
“I perceive why they might have provided that,” he mentioned. “To be trustworthy with you, if a sufferer is saying, ‘I don’t need her prosecuted in any respect,’ we might simply have dismissed it and gone on our merry method. Not less than we now have some kind of decision by providing the obstruction. There may be some hammer.”
Choose Longoria, who presided over Recker’s case, mentioned he regretted approving the plea discount.
“That’s egregious,” he mentioned after the Specific-Information outlined the info of the case for him.
Longoria mentioned he permitted the plea deal with out delving into the small print, a typical observe in busy prison courts.
“Anyone that injured any individual and was allegedly at .15 or greater… if I had identified that there had been an damage, there’s no method in hell I’d have gone with obstruction,” the choose mentioned. “That is a humiliation to me to have permitted that.”
‘Get the habituals off the highway’
Underneath the Texas Penal Code, a primary DWI is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by as much as six months in jail.
A second DWI is a Class A misdemeanor, with a sentence of as much as a yr. Second offenders additionally lose their driver’s licenses for 90 days, and for a yr thereafter, they’ve to make use of an ignition interlock system.
A 3rd DWI is a felony.
Punishments for all classes of DWI are “enhanced” if the motive force’s BAC is .15 or greater. Even for a primary offense, the potential jail sentence is a yr slightly than six months, and the offender’s license might be suspended for as much as a yr.
After regaining their licenses, DWI offenders need to pay 1000’s of {dollars} in administrative surcharges to maintain their driving privileges. As well as, they’ll pay a fortune for auto insurance coverage, if they’ll get it in any respect, and so they might face repercussions at work and difficulties renting housing, amongst quite a few different issues.
These penalties would have a robust deterrent impact — if individuals who drink and drive knew they wouldn’t have the ability to escape them.
State Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, mentioned the issue with permitting DWI defendants to plead to obstructing a freeway “is that there is no such thing as a first-time DWI offense.” Within the eyes of the legislation, the second offense counts as the primary. “That may hinder that prosecutor’s capacity to deal with and prosecute repeat offenders,” Murr mentioned.
Officer William Kasberg of the San Antonio Police Division’s DWI unit offers a subject sobriety check to a motorist he had stopped on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated. The person failed the check and was taken into custody. “There’s a huge tradition that includes alcohol,” Kasberg mentioned.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-Information
Officer William Kasberg of the San Antonio Police Division’s DWI unit offers a subject sobriety check to a motorist he had stopped on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated. The person failed the check and was taken into custody. “There’s a huge tradition that includes alcohol,” Kasberg mentioned.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-Information
Officer William Kasberg of the San Antonio Police Division’s DWI unit offers a subject sobriety check to a motorist he had stopped on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated. The person failed the check and was taken into custody. “There’s a huge tradition that includes alcohol,” Kasberg mentioned.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-Information
Officer William Kasberg of the San Antonio Police Division’s DWI unit offers a subject sobriety check to a motorist he had stopped on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated. The person failed the check and was taken into custody. “There’s a huge tradition that includes alcohol,” Kasberg mentioned.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-Information
Officer William Kasberg of the San Antonio Police Division’s DWI unit offers a subject sobriety check to a motorist he had stopped on suspicion of driving whereas intoxicated. The person failed the check and was taken into custody. “There’s a huge tradition that includes alcohol,” Kasberg mentioned. (Jerry Lara / San Antonio Specific-Information)
That’s why when Jennifer Tharp turned Comal County district lawyer in 2011, she set a tough rule: No DWI defendant might plead to obstructing a freeway. She needed repeat offenders to face the implications, and that would occur provided that their first DWIs went on their data as DWIs.
“I frustrate a whole lot of attorneys by not permitting these sorts of pleas,” mentioned Tharp, a Republican. “In the event that they commit driving whereas intoxicated, then we cost it that method.”
Nonetheless, she supported bipartisan laws, co-authored by Murr, that in 2019 allowed first-time DWI defendants to obtain deferred adjudication. That’s a type of probation during which the cost is dismissed if the defendant complies with court-imposed circumstances. Till then, DWI defendants had been excluded from deferred adjudication.
The change was acceptable to Tharp and different prosecutors as a result of below the 2019 legislation, if a defendant who benefited from deferred adjudication commits a second DWI, the brand new cost counts as simply that — not as a primary offense. This was seen as a technique to give first offenders a second likelihood whereas coming down laborious on those that blow the chance and reoffend.
“We have to know in the event you’ve had priors,” mentioned state Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, additionally a co-author of the invoice. “We’ve obtained to get the habituals off the highway, and we’ve obtained to present somebody a second likelihood.”
But the Bexar County DA’s workplace has not taken benefit of the 2019 legislation. It continues to discount some DWIs all the way down to obstructing a freeway. Henricksen, the chief of litigation, defended the coverage, saying it strikes a stability between the “profit” of permitting first-time offenders to keep away from a DWI conviction and what he referred to as the “value.”
“The price is which you can’t improve off of an obstruction plea,” he mentioned. In different phrases, somebody who will get the break and drives drunk once more isn’t handled as a repeat offender.
“However you’ve obtained to stability that towards the profit,” he mentioned. “With that DWI conviction, it’s going to be more durable to get a job, it’s going to be more durable to get housing, it’s going to be more durable to get monetary assist for faculty.”
‘Fairly devastating’
The primary time Luis Gonzalez was arrested for DWI, in April 2015, he was driving erratically after midnight on the South Facet with out his lights on, a police report mentioned. An officer noticed his tan Mazda soar a curb and practically hit a pole. He pulled Gonzalez over within the 4300 block of South Presa.
A breath check confirmed Gonzalez had a BAC of .158, and he was charged with DWI with enhanced penalties. However prosecutor Trey Mims decreased the cost to obstructing a highway-intoxication in trade for a responsible plea.
Gonzalez was sentenced to 1 yr of deferred adjudication. On July 15, 2016, he accomplished his sentence, and the cost was dismissed.
Eight days later, Gonzalez was driving 66 mph on a piece of Babcock Highway with a posted velocity restrict of 30 mph when his Chevrolet Tahoe crossed into oncoming visitors and crashed head-on right into a Buick Lacrosse. Gonzalez’s Tahoe rode onto the hood of the Lacrosse, flipped onto its facet and skidded throughout the highway. Then a BMW plowed into it.
Within the BMW, a 54-year-old girl suffered damaged enamel and a fractured rib. The motive force of the Lacrosse, Rogelio Rodriguez Sr., then 69, a retired plane mechanic, suffered 12 damaged ribs, a damaged femur, a damaged sternum, a concussion and a collapsed lung.
As for Gonzalez, police discovered him sitting on the sidewalk, leaning towards a fence put up and struggling to remain awake. Gonzalez mentioned his shoulder harm, and he was loaded into an ambulance, the place he turned “combative” with emergency responders, a police report mentioned. At College Hospital, a staffer remarked that he “reeked of tequila.”
His BAC was measured at .18.
Gonzalez was charged with intoxication assault, a felony.
In Might 2021, prosecutor Joseph Hooker decreased the cost to driving with a BAC of greater than .15, a misdemeanor.
Gonzalez pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 6 months and 16 days in jail.
Prosecutors downgraded the cost from a felony to a misdemeanor as a result of they couldn’t find the victims to testify towards Gonzalez, mentioned Juanita A. Vásquez-Gardner, felony chief of the prison trial division within the Bexar County DA’s workplace.
“We made 13 failed makes an attempt to succeed in the complaining witnesses,” she mentioned.
Gonzalez’s punishment didn’t match the crime, mentioned Rodriguez’s sister, Sonia Coultress.
“For the primary two months, he simply needed to learn to stroll and get his schools again,” Coultress mentioned of her brother. “He was by no means in a position to stroll accurately once more. The way in which he was laid up, it was fairly devastating.”
Rodriguez died earlier this yr of causes unrelated to the accident. His accidents plagued him to the tip, Coultress mentioned, forcing him to spend his final years in an assisted residing facility.
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, takes a break throughout rehab at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into his bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “The after-effects of it are catastrophic,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be.”
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into Garcia’s bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “The after-effects of it are catastrophic,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be.”
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into Garcia’s bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “The after-effects of it are catastrophic,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be.” (Jerry Lara / Specific-Information)
‘Screaming in ache’
In August 2017, Hilario Martinez was driving a pickup when he ran a pink gentle at Guadalupe Avenue and South Hamilton Avenue on the West Facet and struck an SUV.
“It was a tough crash,” mentioned Francisco Garza, a witness. “The truck spun and hit town pole. The opposite automobile, when it hit, it spun round, and you may see the lady come out of that automobile.”
The “lady” was Tiffany Guitron, a front-seat passenger who was ejected from the SUV.
Garza noticed her slam right into a chain-link fence.
“She hit that fairly laborious,” he mentioned. “When she got here out of it, she was in ache. She was screaming in ache.”
A police report mentioned Guitron and two different girls within the SUV suffered “severe bodily damage.”
Guitron suffered “a damaged left wrist,” the report mentioned. She was taken to College Hospital.
Martinez sustained minor cuts and scrapes on his face. He was charged with intoxication assault, often known as DWI with severe bodily damage.
That felony cost started to unravel when Roy Rohrer, an investigator for the Bexar County DA’s workplace, despatched a letter to Dr. Susannah Nicholson at College Hospital, who handled Guitron after the crash.
Rohrer requested Nicholson for her medical opinion as as to if Guitron suffered “severe bodily damage,” one of many parts of intoxication assault.
Rohrer — quoting straight from the Texas Penal Code — mentioned a severe bodily damage was one “that creates a considerable danger of significant everlasting disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the operate of any bodily member or organ.”
Nicholson marked a field that mentioned Guitron “didn’t maintain” a severe bodily damage.
In Might 2019, Martinez’s intoxication assault cost was decreased — crossed out with a black line in courtroom data. Although he had brought about an accident, Martinez was allowed to plead responsible to obstructing a highway-intoxication and was sentenced to 2 years of deferred adjudication.
The cost was dismissed final yr after he accomplished the probationary sentence.
Angulo mentioned prosecutors dropped the intoxication assault cost as a result of, given the physician’s opinion, they may not show that Guitron suffered a severe bodily damage.
Guitron mentioned in a textual content message that she nonetheless suffers ache from accidents suffered within the crash. She declined to remark additional.
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, struggles to climb a set of steps at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into his bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo.
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
Elizabeth Guajardo watches as her husband, Joe Angel Garcia, 43 struggles to climb a set of steps at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital. Garcia, 43, suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into his bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be,” Guajardo mentioned.
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographer
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, struggles to climb a set of steps at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital. Garcia suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into his bike on Sept. 19, 2021. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo. (Jerry Lara / Specific-Information)
‘That’s not justice’
One night time in October 2018, Mason Cardiff was driving residence from his dad and mom’ home when a Cadillac ran a pink gentle on the intersection of Blanco and Huebner roads on the North Facet and smashed into the entrance driver’s facet door of his automobile.
“Inexperienced gentle, I’m going by way of, and subsequent factor I do know I’m spinning out, obtained hit,” mentioned Cardiff, 28.
The motive force of the Cadillac obtained out and ran. Shortly after the crash, an officer noticed Hassam Olivas Pantoja, then 34, emerge shirtless from some bushes and run towards one other automobile that had arrived to choose him up, a police report mentioned.
Pantoja refused to present a blood specimen. Police obtained a warrant to compel him to take action, and his BAC was measured at .154.
It wasn’t his first DWI arrest. A decade earlier, in Las Cruces, N.M., he had pleaded responsible to driving below the affect of liquor or medicine and was sentenced to deferred adjudication, in accordance with courtroom data.
After the 2018 crash, a prosecutor referred to as Cardiff.
“It was simply actually unusual as a result of they kind of led the dialog with a number one query that made me very uncomfortable: ‘Would you be serious about dropping the hit and run cost and do a lesser cost?’” Cardiff recalled. “I used to be like, ‘Nicely, why would I wish to try this?’ And so they mentioned, ‘Nicely, generally we wish to be a little bit extra lenient towards folks.’”
Cardiff advised the prosecutor — whose identify he couldn’t recall — that he needed to press fees.
“They appeared actually immune to that,” he mentioned.
In the long run, regardless of the collision, the earlier arrest and his excessive BAC, Pantoja was allowed to plead responsible to obstructing a freeway.
Choose Huff permitted the plea discount and sentenced Pantoja to 1 yr of deferred adjudication.
“I actually don’t have a solution for why the prosecutor decreased that,” Angulo mentioned. “I disagree with that.”
For a separate cost of failing to cease and render assist, Pantoja was sentenced to a few years of deferred adjudication.
Huff mentioned she didn’t recall the case.
Cardiff was not happy.
“This units a precedent, proper?” he mentioned. “If that is a person who’s getting away with a lesser cost, then that’s not justice.”
He added, “I used to be very level-headed and calm concerning the automobile wreck. I used to be extra livid and indignant with the district lawyer’s workplace giving me this telephone name. You’re the one purported to be giving justice. That is the legislation. They broke the legislation. Due to this fact, they must be prosecuted towards this legislation.”
‘He’s not the identical Joe’
Joe Angel Garcia sat in a wheelchair at Heat Springs on a latest Saturday, ready for a nurse to drop by his room with an inventory of medicines for him to take at residence.
After three months of state-funded rehab, it was Garcia’s final day on the facility. Elizabeth Guajardo, his spouse, stood by his facet, simply as she had practically every single day since his disastrous experience residence on his Harley.
“I’m prepared,” Garcia mentioned.
However he was removed from healed.
Docs nonetheless had not changed the piece of cranium that they had eliminated to alleviate stress on his mind. He nonetheless couldn’t stroll, not to mention climb stairs, with out assist. He was going through many extra months of neurorehabilitation — of therapists attempting to assist his broken mind make new pathways, new connections.
Earlier than the crash, Garcia typically cracked jokes. Now, he received’t discuss except another person begins a dialog. Usually, he can’t talk what he needs to say: “Give me the TV” would possibly imply he must go to the lavatory.
“The aftereffects of it are catastrophic,” Guajardo mentioned. “I misplaced Joe to a sure extent. He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be.”
Joe Angel Garcia, 43, suffered extreme mind, spinal and different accidents after a drunken driver drove a three-ton Lincoln Navigator into his bike on Sept. 19, 2021. Docs needed to take away a chunk of his cranium to alleviate stress on his mind. “He’s not the identical Joe and by no means will probably be,” mentioned his spouse, Elizabeth Guajardo.
Jerry Lara, San Antonio Specific-Information / Employees photographerSpecific-Information information reporter Ryan Serpico and Hearst Texas information editor Alexandra Kanik assisted with the evaluation of courtroom data.
Lead picture: Joe Angel Garcia relearning find out how to stroll at Heat Springs Rehabilitation Hospital of San Antonio.
