By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

COLUMBUS, Kan. — Several drunken-driving cases are being thrown out in Cherokee County because a judge concluded the Sheriff’s Department illegally detained some of those who had been stopped. Other cases are being dismissed because the Sheriff’s Department for several months last year used equipment that was not certified to measure blood-alcohol content, according to the county attorney’s office.

The Sheriff’s Department has now changed its policy, said Cherokee County Attorney John Bullard. The department also is now using equipment that will stand up in court.

Recent cases

Cherokee County Magistrate Judge Bill Lyerla on Feb. 28 dismissed a felony DUI charge against Michael Aldrighetti, 44, of Columbus, ruling that the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department had detained him illegally.

Aldrighetti’s lawyer, Sam Marsh, wrote in a motion to dismiss that the Sheriff’s Department had violated his client’s rights because he was arrested at 6:41 p.m. on March 2, 2007, and was released at 8:42 a.m. on March 3. Marsh wrote that his client was prevented from bonding out of jail before then because of the Sheriff’s Department policy.

The felony charge against Aldrighetti alleged that he committed the crime after two previous convictions.

A felony DUI charge against Lucas Hatcher, 27, of Columbus, also was dismissed recently for the same reasons, Bullard said. Hatcher was found guilty of misdemeanor traffic charges and sentenced to probation. He also was charged with committing the crime after two previous convictions.

“There are several dismissals that will be filed in the near future and in the next few months,” Bullard wrote in an e-mail explaining the situation in the Hatcher case. “We have been going through the pending DUIs and checking with the jail to see how many were detained. I don’t know the total number yet, but it’s more than a handful.”

Yet another dismissed case is that of Becky Allgood, of Commerce, Okla. She had been charged with felony DUl also after two previous convictions. The incident from which the charge resulted happened on Sept. 9, 2007, in Baxter Springs. She was found guilty of misdemeanors and traffic infractions, ordered to pay a fine and sentenced to a year’s probation. Judge Lyerla dismissed the DUI charge on March 4, citing a 2001 Kansas Supreme Court ruling.

That case struck down the automatic, mandatory detention periods for DUI arrests. The ruling found that mandatory detention policies violate the state constitution’s requirement that defendants be allowed to see a judge and make bail “without unnecessary delay.”

The ruling states that there are varying degrees of “under the influence” and being under the influence is not necessarily the same as being intoxicated. It also states that a judge can take public safety into account when setting conditions for release. Public safety is not an issue when someone who is arrested is released into the custody of a responsible person, it reads.

No blanket policies

The Supreme Court ruling allows officers to continue to make individual determinations about detention based on personal observations, but there can be no blanket policy.