Guilty plea entered in latest DUI charge

One of the state's most well-known drunken-driving defendants pleaded guilty Tuesday to a driving-under-the-influence charge.

The surprise plea was entered by Susan West, who was convicted in 1997 of killing a woman on the Sammamish Plateau and sentenced to nine years in prison.

West faces a sentence of up to a $5,000 fine and one year in jail for the new DUI conviction.

Her attorney, Cara Starr, said she had no comment on the plea.

"No, no explanation," she said.

West's most recent citation stemmed from a June 18 incident in Bellevue, when an officer stopped her car in the Newport Hills area after noticing an inoperative license-plate light. The officer determined West's speech was slurred and that she showed other signs of intoxication, so she was arrested. She refused to take a breath test. West also was found to be driving without a valid license; that charge was dismissed as part of Tuesday's plea agreement.

West had previously pleaded not guilty to the DUI charge and had been scheduled to face rulings today in Bellevue District Court on various motions entered by the defense and prosecution in her case.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin Friday, with a panel of 100 potential jurors expected to be called, rather than the normal 30, because of what West's attorney called extensive pretrial publicity.

"It was a surprise that she entered a plea," said Lori Riordan, Bellevue city attorney.

In the summer of 1997, West struck Mary Johnsen, 38, who was walking with her husband on the Sammamish Plateau. Johnsen was thrown 146 feet, and West drove away without stopping. She later was found to have a 0.34 percent blood-alcohol reading, more than three times the level that was then the drunken-driving threshold.

West pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, hit-and-run driving, reckless driving and reckless endangerment. She served six years of her nine-year sentence and had been living in an apartment in the Newport Hills area since her release.

"You became a human bomb," said King County Superior Court Judge Larry Jordan when he sentenced West in November 1997, noting her long history of alcoholism problems. "Tragically, the previous orders from the court had no impact."

West is to be sentenced for her most recent offense Aug. 28.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com