A serial drunk driver will spend time in jail and deal with a hefty driving ban after he pleaded guilty to three new charges.
Daniel Joseph Rice appeared in Estevan provincial court on Monday in handcuffs. Three separate impaired driving incidents from 2011 were on the court docket, and he entered a guilty plea to the latest charge from Dec. 31, 2011. He had previously pleaded guilty to impaired driving for incidents on March 5 and Aug. 16 of that same year.
Though together the incidents will mark Rice's fifth conviction, the latest incident is his seventh charge. Despite that, his Legal Aid defence noted, for the purposes of sentencing, all charges are to be treated as his fifth conviction.
Rice had previous convictions in 1993, 1995, 2005 and 2009.
During the first 2011 incident, Rice had relatively low readings of .10 and .11.
On Aug. 16, 2011, Rice drove his vehicle across the centre line and oncoming lane, crashing into the ditch on the far side of the road. Police arrived and Rice was taken to hospital where a blood sample found his alcohol content was .215, about two-and-a-half times the legal limit.
The Dec. 31 incident is where Rice provided his most elevated readings. After speeding through the intersection of Souris Avenue and King Street, police pulled him over on Edward Street. After he was arrested, he provided samples of .24, three times the legal limit.
The defence and Crown jointly submitted a 20-month jail sentence for Judge James Benison's consideration. The sentence includes six-month consecutive sentences for each of the impaired charges, as well as one month each for two fail-to-appear in court charges.
"This is a case where the accused was caught three times in the same year. It's more than a slight problem," said the Crown prosecutor.
She noted there is a three-year mandatory driving prohibition for Rice but requested that he be under that ban for five years following his release from jail. The defence said a ban between three and four years would be appropriate.
Benison said he is required to send a message to people who drink and drive and said that the only option before him is a sentence with serious jail time. He told Rice a 20-month sentence may not have been the one would have chosen, but because it was presented to him in a joint application from both parties, he would accept it.
Benison noted impaired driving has been a big part of Rice's life and the habit has worsened recently.
In other court proceedings, Philip Arndt, charged with impaired and dangerous driving causing death and impaired and dangerous driving causing bodily harm in an incident from Feb. 11, 2012, pleaded not guilty to all charges. Arndt's lawyer spoke to the court over the phone, electing a Queen's Bench trial with a judge sitting alone and a preliminary hearing was scheduled to run from June 25 to 28.
Arndt's lawyer noted he continues to recover from the incident with treatment and may undergo further surgery.
