 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Veltri1/11/2001
After convicting a defendant of driving while intoxicated, should a Superior Court trial justice have granted the defendant's motion for a new trial, overturned his conviction, and then dismissed the charges against him on the grounds that, after his arrest, the police had failed to provide him with a free telephone call? No, we hold, absent any evidence that the defendant had suffered substantial and irremediable prejudice as a result.
After convicting defendant, Alfred J. Veltri (Veltri or defendant), of one count of driving while intoxicated, the Superior Court vacated the verdict and dismissed the charges when defendant moved for a new trial on the grounds that, after his arrest, the police had failed to provide him with access to a free telephone call. The state petitioned this Court for certiorari, seeking to vacate this dismissal and reinstate Veltri's conviction. For the reasons propounded below, we conclude that the trial justice erred when he granted the new trial motion and then inappropriately vacated the conviction and dismissed the charges. Therefore, we direct the Superior Court to reinstate Veltri's conviction on remand.
On August 16, 1998, the state police arrested defendant and charged him with violating G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2 for driving while intoxicated on Route 95 north in the town of Exeter (count 1). They also charged him with driving on a suspended license (count 2). The District Court convicted him on count 1 but not on count 2. The defendant then appealed to the Superior Court for a trial de novo.
Although the state has not provided us with a transcript of the Superior Court's non-jury trial, the trial justice in his decision reviewed the evidence and noted that defendant had failed certain field sobriety tests after two state troopers had stopped him for erratic driving. Finding the prosecution's witnesses credible and determining that the state had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the trial justice entered a guilty verdict on May 25, 1999. On June 2, 1999, defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which the court heard that same day. The defendant stated that although he had requested a new trial pursuant to Rule 33 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure, *fn1 he was now asking for the verdict to be vacated based upon State v. Carcieri, 730 A.2d 11 (R.I. 1999). This Court decided Carcieri one week before defendant's trial began. There, we stated that, under G.L. 1956 § 12-7-20, a suspect is entitled to a free confidential telephone call to contact an attorney or to arrange for bail. Carcieri, 730 A.2d at 14-15. Here, although the police informed defendant that he had the right to call an attorney, they directed him to a pay telephone. The defendant did not have any change and he did not wish to make a collect call or to use a calling card from that telephone. As a result, he did not use any telephone to contact an attorney.
Although the state argued that there was no showing of any prejudice to defendant, and that, therefore, dismissal was an inappropriate sanction, the trial justice nevertheless granted defendant's new-trial motion and then, inexplicably, he also agreed to dismiss the charges, thereby precluding any retrial. *fn2 He found that "the right to have a phone call free of charge" was "a threshold issue." He also does not contemplate that the court might alter its previous judgment because of a mere legal argument that could have, and should have been raised either prior to or during the trial itself." The state points out that Carcieri was decided a week before defendant's trial started. Therefore, it insists, any arguments based on that case should have been raised before or during the trial. Like any other legal argument no
Page 1 2 3 Rhode Island DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|