DUIs dominate a day in Traffic Court

It’s 10am on a Tuesday morning in late September. Around the room, men and women sit on white plastic chairs in Constitution Hall in downtown George Town, waiting to hear if they’re about to be disqualified from driving, fined or placed on community service, or perhaps all three.

A handful of lawyers are having quiet words with those they are representing before taking their seats at a long table that has been set up in front of where a magistrate will sit.

Traffic Court has been temporarily relocated from the courthouse to the former Town Hall in George Town while renovation work is carried out, and the hall, with sunlight beating through its high windows, makes a pleasant change of venue from the darker, artificially light-lit courtroom in which it is usually held.

Acting Magistrate Adam Roberts enters from a door at the back of the hall and takes his seat at his table, and the morning’s business begins.

First up is a young woman charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, but the file on her case isn’t immediately available. Her lawyer, John Furniss, tells the court she’s a recipient of a government scholarship and is getting ready to move overseas to study in the coming weeks. The magistrate acknowledges this and bails her to return to court in a week.

Next is a man who had been facing three charges, two of which are now being dropped, so he is answering to a single DUI charge. The facts of the case, which are read out in court, indicate he drove his car into a wall at the side of Shamrock Road in March. The man’s employer, who is also in court to support the defendant, provides a character reference and describes how essential he is to his employer’s small business.

Taking into account the man’s early guilty plea, the fact that it’s his first DUI charge and the important role he plays in his boss’s business, the magistrate decides not to disqualify him, but instead places him on probation for one year and gives him a driving “curfew”, curtailing the hours he can drive to 7am to 4pm. Roberts also orders him to perform 40 hours of community service.

The next person to take a seat before the magistrate is already disqualified from driving from an earlier DUI charge. That man, a work-permit holder who had over the past year suffered family tragedies, had turned to drink for a period, during which both DUIs occurred, his lawyer, Furniss, tells the court. The man has since received help and is deeply remorseful of his actions, his attorney tells Roberts.

The magistrate addresses the man, telling him that he acknowledges he’s had “many difficulties” in his life recently, but added, “Two alcohol-related driving offences in such short periods of time have to be reflected in the penalty and in the period of disqualification.” He disqualifies the man from driving for two-and-a-half years, effective that day, and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service.

Almost twice the limit

Next was a restaurant chef, whose breathalyser test in April showed a result of .126, well over the legal limit of .07. Because he had initially pleaded not guilty at an earlier hearing, though subsequently changed his plea, the magistrate said he was giving some, though not all, credit for his guilty plea and would also get credit for completing a DUI programme.

Roberts noted that because the defendant had a previous DUI conviction and had been almost twice the legal limit, he would be giving a higher-than-usual penalty. He disqualified the man from driving for 15 months and ordered him to pay a $500 fine.

A woman facing charges of using a vehicle with an expired registration and without a valid certificate of roadworthiness, as well careless driving, appears next. Roberts asks if she has already paid the money she owes on the expired registration; she replies that she has not.

He advises her to pay it as soon as possible and then return to the court to enter her plea because the court is entitled to, and usually does, fine individuals before it on such charges three times the outstanding fees. He tells her to return to court with her receipt from the DVDL in two weeks.

A Spanish-speaking defendant, accompanied by an interpreter, appears next. He faces charges of driving without insurance, driving without being qualified, using a vehicle with an expired registration and without a certificate of roadworthiness. To deal with some immigration issues, the man agrees to pay a surety of $950 for the return of his passport so he can get it stamped to remain in Cayman.

The magistrate bails him to return the following week and advises him “strongly” to get a lawyer as the charge of driving without being qualified may lead to him being given a custodial sentence.

The final person to appear is a man facing DUI and driving without insurance. His lawyer isn’t in court, so the magistrate put the case off until the following week.

This small glimpse into Traffic Court shows the wide range of offences that are happening on local roads, with DUIs being one of the most regular. Of the just seven cases heard that morning – an extremely quiet one for the usually bustling courtroom which can see literally dozens of cases in a single day – five involved DUIs.