On Aug. 30, a Rochester woman was stopped for a seatbelt violation as she was entering the state Thruway in Van Buren with six children in her vehicle. After troopers suspected she had been drinking, she was found to have a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent. Lisa A. Trybus, 41, was charged under Leandra’s Law with six felony counts of...
On Aug. 30, a Rochester woman was stopped for a seatbelt violation as she was entering the state Thruway in Van Buren with six children in her vehicle. After troopers suspected she had been drinking, she was found to have a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent.
Lisa A. Trybus, 41, was charged under Leandra’s Law with six felony counts of driving while intoxicated — one felony count per child — by state police out of Troop T.
Saturday, a Madison man overturned his vehicle on Route 46 near the Madison County town of Eaton with four children and his wife in the vehicle. After troopers suspected he had been drinking, he was found to have a blood-alcohol content of 0.12 percent.
Jason G. Caufield, 31, was charged with one felony count of driving while intoxicated under Leandra’s Law and four misdemeanor counts – one misdemeanor count per child – by state police out of Troop D in Oneida.
On the face of it, the charges against Trybus seem steeper than those against Caufield — six felonies to one. The reality, district attorneys in two counties said today, is that both defendants face punishment in just one felony.
Leandra’s Law is named for 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, who was killed while riding in the car of a friend’s mother. It is a relatively new state law that makes driving drunk with a child under 15 in the vehicle a felony.
But while there were six children in the car in Trybus’ case, the act of driving drunk is a single act, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said.
“One act, one sentence,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick gave an example of throwing a chair that injures three people. It would be three counts of assault coming from a single act, but the thrower of the chair would be sentenced to a single felony instead of three.
When the state legislature passed Leandra’s Law in November, it did not address charges that result when multiple children are in a vehicle.
“It’s really something that wasn’t anticipated when the law was passed,” Fitzpatrick said.
As a result, some counties charge a felony DWI for every child in the car and some charge only one DWI, no matter how many children are in the car, he said.
Because the law is so new, Madison County District Attorney William Gabor said he has not sat down with all the law enforcement agencies in his county to talk about how a case like this should be charged.
“You could charge it either way,” Gabor said. “There’s no advantage I can see to charging more than one in sentencing this individual.”
“In reality, the sentences would be the same,” he said.
Fitzpatrick said charging multiple counts of Leandra’s Law could be a strategic thing. For example, multiple charges would allow a case to go on if one of the children in the car turned out to be 16.
State police on the Thruway charge one count of felony DWI for each child in the car, Sgt. Robin Urbaniak said.
“We used to charge endangerment before we had Leandra’s Law,” said Urbaniak, of Troop T.
“Since the law has changed to better suit the crime, we charge Leandra’s Law per child,” she said.
Contact Robert A. Baker at bbaker@syracuse.com or at 470-2182.