State justice will see law from other side

If State Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge is found guilty or pleads guilty to drunken driving, she could spend a state-mandated minimum two days in jail or face a maximum of a year behind bars with a $5,000 fine.

Bridge was arrested Friday night about 9:15 while driving from Queen Anne to Magnolia following an informal gathering. Police say her blood-alcohol level was 0.22 percent, nearly three times the legal limit of .08 percent.

To have reached a blood-alcohol level of 0.22 percent, Bridge, who weighs less than 100 pounds, had to have consumed the equivalent of five-and-a-half, five-ounce glasses of wine in three hours. Calculations for intoxication vary by glass size and alcohol percentage of wine.

For those guilty of DUI with lower blood-alcohol levels, 0.08 to 0.15 percent, the minimum sentence is one day in jail or a 15-day home detention. The minimum for someone with a blood-alcohol of more than 0.15 percent — as in Bridge's case — is two days in jail.

While the state has minimum jail punishments for DUI cases, alternatives do exist: A judge can sentence someone to home detention for 30 days or offer a deferred prosecution, a two-year intensive-treatment program for alcoholics that dismisses a DUI from the record.

With no prior convictions, Bridge will be treated as a first-time offender.

As a result, 60 days from her arrest, Bridge's driver's license can be suspended for 90 days, but after 30 days she can apply for a special license to drive to work.

Bridge also faces criminal charges for a hit and run, also a misdemeanor, which could add to her sentence but carries no mandatory jail time.

"The court is really not amused when you're a DUI and you get in an accident," said John Patrick Mucklestone, a Seattle attorney who handles DUI defense cases. "It ups the ante as far as the crime, because it's a separate offense."

While Bridge has publicly admitted to driving drunk, she pleaded not guilty in court Saturday. And that's not unusual.

"The not-guilty plea is just the beginning of the legal process. It doesn't mean there won't be a guilty plea down the road," said Jeff Veitch, a former Seattle city prosecutor and now a private attorney who handles DUI cases.

Veitch said that because Seattle has such a quick turnaround time, normally 24 to 48 hours from arrest to arraignment, all the evidence isn't normally in order for the first appearance. "The parties, the court and the defendant are not prepared to enter a plea of guilty at that time."

Even if a person fails the breath test, they may still seek a not-guilty plea, said Mucklestone. Typically, defense lawyers will argue that the officers did not follow procedure, or the blood-alcohol testing equipment was not maintained or administered properly.

"From a legal perspective, you have your freedom at stake because of the reliability of a machine."

Bridge's attorney, Jeffery Robinson, said it is undecided how the case will be argued. "Justice Bridge and I are in the process of deciding what she is going to do. Any approach we take will have at its foundation that she acknowledges what she did was wrong and she is responsible."

If a deferred prosecution is offered, Bridge must first admit to an alcohol problem, then attend meetings three times a week for three months, and then weekly to monthly meetings for 21 months depending on her progress. Additionally, for two years she must attend support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and will be subject to evaluation for five years.

When arrested, Bridge agreed to a blood-alcohol test. If she had refused, her license could have been revoked for up to two years.

If a breath test is administered, it must be within two hours of the incident, the vehicle is impounded and the person is released to a relative or driven home by police, as was the case with Bridge.

"It appears it (Bridge's case) was handled in a typical fashion," said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County's prosecutor's office. "They (police) look at the question whether the person would likely appear for court proceedings, whether there was a criminal history," and then decide to release the person.

From Olympia, Gov. Gary Locke said he was "saddened and disappointed" by the incident but expressed support for Bridge.

"Justice Bridge clearly made the wrong decision when she got behind the wheel Friday night," Locke said. "She expressed to me her deep remorse and disappointment in her behavior, and her desire to take immediate and full responsibility."

As a sitting judge, Bridge could be subject to professional scrutiny by the state's Commission on Judicial Conduct. If a complaint against Bridge is made to the commission or the commission initiates its own investigation, outcomes can include reprimands or suspension from the bench.

In the private sector, things are a bit different.

Washington is an "at-will" state and as such, private employers generally have the right to fire a worker convicted of drunken driving whether the incident took place on or off the clock.

"Many employers have a rule," said Margaret Barbier, a labor and employment attorney with the firm Stoel Rives. "When it comes to off-duty conduct, they really want to see that it has a tangible impact on the employee's ability to do his or her job."

Many companies deal with off-duty DUIs on a case-by-case basis, if at all.

At Boeing, employees arrested for offenses that are not job-related are sent to the company's employee-assistance program, which helps with personal matters. They're also considered innocent until convicted, said spokeswoman Barbara Murphy.

If they are convicted, both union and non-union employees could be allowed back to work after serving their jail sentence, Murphy said.

Labor interests say this is how it should be. Many union contracts prohibit employers from firing workers for behavior unrelated to the job.

"It doesn't matter if your boss doesn't like what you do on the weekend," said Lewis Maltby of the National Workrights Institute, a New Jersey-based spinoff of the ACLU. "If it doesn't affect the job, it's none of the boss's business, no matter what they think of it."

Seattle Times staff reporters David Birkland and Shirleen Holt contributed to this report.

Jason Margolis: 206-464-2145 or jmargolis@seattletimes.com