When a person is convicted of a DUI and sentenced to jail, a Maryland DUI attorney will attempt to get the defendant the lightest sentence possible. However, in a neighboring state, one man convicted of a DUI didn't seem to think the best case scenario was a good deal after all. His issue wasn't with the length of his sentence, but with the initial reasons behind his month-long detainment.
When Arturo Carlos Santiago was arrested on suspicion of DUI in 2009, police determined that he had outstanding warrants in Washington DC and Maryland. Santiago waived extradition to Maryland, and he argued with police that he did not, in fact, have any warrants in DC.
He was telling the truth.
The Washington DC warrant had been withdrawn. In the meantime, Santiago spent 47 days in jail for the Maryland warrant and his pending DUI trial. When the trial came, Santiago pleaded guilty to DUI, and the judge sentence him to time served for the DUI conviction. Santiago was extradited to Maryland two days later. Upon his arrival in Maryland, authorities realized that the warrant on which Santiago had been held was not, in fact, for Arturo Carlos Santiago, but for someone else entirely--a man named Jose Hernandez. Santiago was released.
Upon his release, Santiago filed a civil suit claiming wrongful imprisonment on the grounds that he was held for warrants that did not pertain to him. A federal judge dismissed the suit, ruling that Santiago's DUI plea agreement to time served credited his entire incarceration to the DUI offense. Therefore, she ruled, the initial reason for his confinement was moot. The judge deemed that Santiago served 47 days in jail for DUI, and regardless of the fact that the initial basis for his confinement was an erroneous Maryland warrant, his sentence was just.
This article is presented by The Law Offices of David Benowitz, a criminal and DUI defense firm serving Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia. For more information, please visit our DC DWI Lawyer or Virginia DUI Lawyer websites.
