DUI Dismissals No Longer 4 Sale

I wrote last year about local prosecutors putting DUI Dismissals up for Sale. The Tri-City Herald reported today that Governor Christine Gregoire signed Washington State Senate Bill 6100 legislation prohibiting these out-of-court deals.

A city attorney, county prosecutor, or other prosecuting authority may not dismiss, amend, or agree not to file a criminal charge in exchange for a contribution, donation, or payment to any person, corporation, or organization.

It is really hard for me to imagine that this was not illegal before, I guess the prosecutors could not keep the money for themselves but it was ok for them to have you ‘give’ it to their favorite charity in return for dropping charges. Of course the best part of the original story was the surprise that the system would be abused and some of the money, tens of thousands of the money, would disappear.

The oddities? Out of the 140+ Senators and Representatives voting on this only one person voted against it, Representative Jim Dunn (R-Vancouver) from the 17th District. I could find no reason published as to why he would stand alone in thinking that this practice should be legal.