The Associated Press recently reported that a woman in Concord, N. H. was arrested three times in one week for allegedly driving under the influence.

Patricia Mondro now faces a $50,000 cash only bail on three separate charges of a driving under the influence issued within just days of one another.

On January 16, Mondro was arrested in a parking lot in Londonderry after she crashed her vehicle. Witnesses then contacted the local police department because they said that Mondro looked disoriented.

She was then arrested and charged with a misdemeanor DWI, but was release from jail the next day.

Five days later, she was arrested and charged with an aggravated DWI after crashing into a guardrail on Interstate 93 in Concord. Mondro suffered a few injuries from the crash, but was released from jail.

Shortly after Mondro was released she was arrested for a third time. She had allegedly hit a pick-up truck on the same highway where her she was charged with her second DUI offense.

She was driving with her headlights off when she hit the other car which then collided with a third vehicle. No injuries were reported in the incident.

After the first two arrests, Mondro still had her driver’s license because neither case had moved through the court system yet.

Lt. Tim Jones of the Londonderry Police Department said “that the problem is [that] all these license issues kick in after the conviction, [and] she’s in the interim state.”

Judge Gerald Boyle said at Mondro’s arraignment that he was concerned with the public’s safety as she had received multiple DWI’s in a very short period of time.

He further said that Mondro was “an extreme danger” not only to herself but to others as well. So he imposed separate cash only bails for each offense.

According to the Concord Monitor, Mondro made very few remarks during her arraignment. But she said that her husband had recently left her.

Her legal aid stated that Mondro’s family is going to get her the help she needs. Her court date for her third DWI charge is February 9.

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And we’ll repeat our other mantra: Don’t go through sobriety checkpoints. If you see one, make the first legal U-turn or turn away on a side street. Police cannot pursue you for choosing to avoid these organized violations of the Fourth Amendment protection against unwarranted searches and seizures.

While defense of the Constitution provides ample reason for avoiding sobriety checkpoints, doing so also helps encourage better procedures for catching and penalizing drunken drivers. Sobriety checkpoints, in addition to flagrantly violating the Fourth Amendment, don’t work.

Statistics show the average drunken driver who causes a fatal crash has driven with a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit. These are serious drunks and alcoholics, who aren’t in the practice of waiting in line to pass through checkpoints.

Typically, checkpoints net citations for 1 percent of the drivers detained, and the vast majority are people at the lowest threshold of the legal limit, which is .05 in Colorado – a level some adults can reach with one or two beers or servings of wine.

Is it OK to drive after a few drinks? Of course not. Don’t do it, ever. It’s a horrible idea.

But it’s also a bad idea to set up expensive checkpoints to detain thousands of motorists, in order to catch a few casual drinkers who statistically pose no significant threat.

Wasting resources on this exercise consumes our limited law enforcement resources, taking from our roads the police who should be conducting roaming patrols to catch serious drunks – the kind who swerve, drive slowly, forget to use headlights, or show other signs of drunken driving police are trained to detect.

Records from state supreme court cases in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire show roving patrols catch 10 times more drunken drivers than are netted by checkpoints, and at a far lower cost. The American Beverage Institute reports that a sobriety checkpoint may cost more than $10,000, while a roving patrol costs about $300.

If innocent, and pulled over for a sobriety check, be polite but guard against a costly false charge and a night in jail like this:

1. Refuse the roadside sobriety check. It is not required by law, is designed only to provide evidence against a driver, and is difficult to pass when stone cold sober;

2. Consider agreeing to a breath test. Doing so may save your driving privileges, which are lost for at least a year if one refuses both the blood and breath test. Unlike the blood test, results of a breath test can be challenged with relative ease in court and therefore pose the least risk of a false conviction;

3. Don’t offer information beyond providing a driver’s license; and

4. Do not allow a warrantless search of the vehicle.

We offer these tips, as put forth by criminal defense lawyers interviewed by The Gazette, for sober drivers. It’s our hope and belief that dangerous drunks have little chance of avoiding arrest, once found by police, whether or not they guard their rights.

Don’t protect your rights for the sake of inconveniencing police officers, who are extraordinary citizens working hard this holiday to uphold the law and save lives. Do it to protect yourself from the possibility of a false charge or conviction. Do it to limit the authority of the state. Do it this July Fourth weekend mostly to protect one of the fundamental freedoms that led our Founders to fight for independence: freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures by government.

As I’ve said many times, DUI checkpoints don’t work.  If you have questions for an Orange County DUI Attorney, call me anytime at (714) 568-1560.

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