Column: Seattle City Attorney Neglects DUI Prosecution

Just after noon on Thursday, June 27, a West Seattle driver was drifting out of a lane while traveling south on State Route 509. He exited onto Myers Way S, turned on his right turn signal, and then entered the northbound lane near the intersection with Olson Place SW. A car traveling north on Myers Way attempted to exit, but the northbound driver was unable to avoid a head-on collision.

Fortunately, the northbound driver was not seriously injured, and the West Seattle driver was treated for relatively minor injuries, according to the police report. Not surprisingly, the West Seattle driver admitted to consuming a significant amount of alcohol.

This wasn’t the driver’s first DUI arrest. In December 2022, the same driver was arrested by a Seattle police officer after the officer observed a near-head-on collision near a Home Depot in West Seattle. For about 18 months, the police report and arrest information sat in the city attorney’s office, and the city attorney failed to pursue a DUI case against the driver.

If a lawyer had reviewed the file, he would have discovered that the driver had multiple DUIs and was at high risk of reoffending. This bureaucratic delay paved the way for the driver to cause a dangerous accident, damaging another driver’s vehicle.

This isn’t an isolated incident. In another example, a Mukilteo man flipped his car near a Starbucks in SoDo after drinking at a Mariners game in September 2022. He was arrested and police took a report, but the city attorney’s office didn’t charge him until a second DUI incident on New Year’s Day 2024, 15 months later. In fact, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison’s office has been handling hundreds of DUI cases for months, and in some cases years, now.

In 2018 and 2019, the final years of the Pete Holmes administration before the Covid pandemic, the median time between a DUI incident and the filing of a case was five days. In other words, in more than half of drunk driving cases, a case against that person would have been filed in less than a week. During that time, more than 950 cases were filed per year. Some DUI cases took significantly longer to file, but the median time to file in 2018 was still just 88 days.

Moving forward to 2023, the median time between a DUI incident and the filing of a lawsuit was 85 days, or almost three months, and average the time it takes to file a case was closer to a year. By comparison, fewer than 900 cases were filed in 2023. In other words, Davison’s office needs more time to file fewer DUI cases.

In its defense, the City Attorney’s Office blamed the state toxicology lab and a pandemic-era backlog inherited from Holmes for the extended wait times for criminal prosecutions and the city’s decision to dismiss some DUI cases. The state toxicology lab has been slower to process reports since the pandemic began, but only about half of DUI cases require a state toxicology lab report, and the office has not pursued DUI cases in a timely manner, even when those reports are received.

In the case of the West Seattle man, the toxicology lab report was returned to the city attorney’s office more than six months before the driver’s second offense. In the case of the Mukilteo man, the lab report was completed two and a half months before the second offense. In other cases, the city attorney waits more than a year after receiving the toxicology lab report.

When drivers are charged with drunk driving, courts have a number of tools to reduce the likelihood that the driver will drink and drive again. Courts can require drivers to wear a monitoring device so the court can see if they are drinking, courts can require drivers to install an ignition interlock device in their car, and in more extreme cases, courts can take away drivers’ licenses, impose house arrest or sentence them to prison. But none of this will happen unless a city attorney files a lawsuit.

One of the biggest influences a city attorney can have is deciding how to allocate resources. Shortly after taking office, Davison promised to speed up decision-making. She could do that by devoting her attorney’s time to prosecuting DUIs. Instead, she focused her resources on chasing protesters and arguing with an elected judge.

The City Attorney’s Office has already filed two cases against each of the drivers described above. The cases against the West Seattle driver have just been filed, while the Mukilteo man has an ignition interlock device in his car and is otherwise in compliance with court orders. However, the City Attorney’s failure to timely prosecute DUI cases could lead to tragedy.

For a decade, Seattle has had a Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic fatalities by 2030, but unfortunately, fatalities have increased in recent years and remain high. Implementing safer street designs that prioritize safety over speed has been key to cities with successful Vision Zero campaigns, and Seattle still has a long way to go in this regard. However, no matter how safe our streets are designed, drunk drivers will continue to pose a risk of fatal collisions, and our legal system must treat this as a serious problem.

While Davison focused on property crimes, like graffiti artists and protesters, the reality is that drunk drivers cause a lot of property damage. For example, a suspected drunk driver destroyed two stores in Fremont in May and fled the scene, leaving his Tesla behind. Of course, even more valuable than property are the lives lost when drunk drivers get behind the wheel.

Our collective street safety should not be compromised because of the City Attorney’s failure to provide adequate resources for drunk driving cases and prevent repeat offenses.

Rory O’Sullivan

Rory O’Sullivan is a founding partner of Washington Employment Benefits Advocates, a law firm that helps people process unemployment insurance claims. He has served as an administrative judge, a judge pro tem in Seattle Municipal Court, and an associate professor at the University of Washington School of Law and Seattle University School of Law.