Did Driver’s Sex Make a Difference in DUI Consequences?

Any driver convicted of DUI in Los Angeles should receive equal treatment in a courtroom regardless of gender or race. Of course, since judges are human and every defendant’s driving record is different, two people convicted of the same DUI offense may receive dissimilar sentences.

Employers should also have a written gender and race-neutral policy that clearly spells out what will happen if an employee faces DUI charges. But that’s not always the case, and it can leave those employers open to charges of discrimination.

In Syracuse, New York, Colleen Tedeschi, former principal of Jamesville Elementary School, is claiming that the Jamesville-DeWitt school district has practiced gender discrimination after firing her from her job. According to the website Syracuse.com, Tedeschi said the district treated her differently than it treated a male employee arrested on similar charges.

On March 22, 2015, police charged Tedeschi with aggravated DWI because she was driving under the influence with two children under 16 in her car. Tedeschi said she had drunk two glasses of wine because she hadn’t planned to go out; then she got a call from her son who needed a ride home for himself and a friend. Police officers pulled her over because she had been tailgating another vehicle; her blood alcohol content measured 0.12.

The school district fired Tedeschi a week later. She filed suit against the district, claiming that it had treated Athletic Director John Goodson differently when police charged him with a DUI. Not only did he keep his job, he gained tenure a year later.

But the school district said the charges were more serious in Tedeschi’s case because she had two underage children in her car. That factor—not her sex—was the determining factor in the decision to remove her from her job.
California’s Vehicle Code 23572 calls for tougher penalties for anyone convicted of a DUI with children under the age of 14. The driver could also face charges of child endangerment.

Designing and executing an effective defense against DUI charges (even simple ones) is not intuitive. Fortunately, you can trust the seasoned, highly successful Michael Kraut. Call a DUI lawyer in Los Angeles with nearly two decades of experience.