Last night, Dwight David Benson was sentenced in Seattle Municipal Court to 3 years in jail for his 11th DUI. He was sentenced to 3 years in jail, which is an unusually high sentence for Municipal Court. I am in that court all the time and was there this morning in fact.
The media covered this sentence and people have been debating whether this sentence was justified. Many argue that he should have been sentenced to 3 years in jail a long time ago- He does have ELEVEN prior DUIs.
The maximum sentence for a misdemeanor is 1 year in jail. DUI is a misdemeanor in Washington- unless a person gets convicted of four DUIs within seven years- then it's a felony. I know that Mr. Benson has not had 4 convictions with in the last seven years because he would have been charged with a felony and the Municipal Court would not have jurisdiction, so he would have to be sentenced in Superior Court.
If you have been convicted of 2 or 3 DUIs within the last seven years, and your blood alcohol content was over .15, then the MAXIMUM sentence allowed by Washington State law is imprisonment for "no more than one year and one hundred fifty days of electronic home monitoring."
Here's my question to all of you: If Mr. Benson is being charged with a misdemeanor in Municipal Court and therfore can only be sentenced to a maximum of one year in jail and 150 days of electronic home monitoring, then HOW DID HE GET 3 YEARS???
I haven't seen the court docket and the media hasn't been helpful in explaining this, so I don't know. I have a few ideas, but I'm interested in finding out what everyone else thinks. How did Mr. Bensen get sentenced to 3 years in jail for a DUI when the longest possible sentence is 1 year in jail and 150 days of EHM?
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