Drunk Driver Sentenced

On my personal blog I posted about a young man who had a long history of Operating After Revocation and drunk driving. While driving drunk (BAC .168) he drove the wrong way on the highway and hit my client head on.

He was sentenced by Judge Mac Davis last week, September 26, 2008. The sentence included one year in jail with work release privileges and 5 years probation.

The Journal Sentinel sent a reporter to the sentencing hearing:

Driver gets one year in wrong-way crash

Waukesha — A Richfield man who was intoxicated on Jan. 8 when he drove the wrong way on Highway 41/45 and collided head-on with another vehicle, seriously injuring the driver of that car, has been sentenced to one year in jail with work release privileges.

John D. Cimermancic, 26, pleaded guilty in July to injury by intoxicated use of a vehicle and was sentenced Friday by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis.

According to the criminal complaint, the crash occurred about 11:40 p.m. Jan. 8 on Highway 41/45 at County Line Road in Menomonee Falls.

Two vehicles crashed head-on in the northbound lanes of the highway.

John Cimermancic’s attorney said he didn’t believe that prison does much as a deterrent. Judge Davis disagreed with Cimermancic’s attorney, saying there is more protection of the public if the defendant is in prison. Judge Davis was concerned about the victim in this case. He said that impact on the victim is very substantial and that nothing we can do will make the victim whole.

But Judge Davis pointed out, if Cimermancic is out working, then there is the potential for the victim to be compensated sooner rather than later.

Cimermancic is now a felon. He can’t vote. He can’t own a gun. He must maintain sobriety. He must attend AA or some other program. He must maintain full-time employment. He loses his driver’s license for 2 years. And he must begin paying restitution immediately.

-Attorney Jon Groth

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am and is filed under Car Accidents, Drunken Driving Accidents, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.