Washington State DUI Statistics for February 2012

Washington Courts Systems keeps statistics regarding all of the types of filings for cases throughout the state, including for people arrested for a Washington State DUI. I recently went to the website for Washington Courts to gather data for Washington State DUI cases in February of this year (Washington State Courts). For the month of February, 3155 charges for DUI were filed in the district and municipal courts of Washington. The largest amount of filings for DUI charges occurred in King County District Court with a total of 817. King County District Court is where all the DUI arrests made by Washington State Patrol Troopers, King County Sheriff Deputies, University of Washington Police Officers and Port of Seattle Police Officers within King County are charged.

Seattle DUI arrests made by Seattle Police Officers led to 174 DUI charges filed in the Seattle Municipal Court in February. The City of Kirkland filed 35 charges for a Kirkland DUI arrest. Renton DUI charges filed in Renton Municipal Court totaled 29. The City of Bellevue had 22 Bellevue DUI cases charged. Issaquah Municipal Court saw 13 DUI cases filed. The Redmond Prosecutor’s office filed 16 Redmond DUI cases.

While there is also data regarding the outcome of all DUI cases, it is difficult to differentiate between cases that were both charged and filed and in the month of February as opposed to cases that were filed well before then but were resolved in the month (much more likely the latter because only a very small percent of cases that are filed are resolved in the same month. The reports indicate that 1360 Washington State DUI charges resulted in a guilty finding for a DUI in the month of February.

Additionally, 661 Washington State DUI charges were dismissed in February. That is very misleading as it is common for a law enforcement officer to directly file a DUI charge that is immediately dismissed because the arresting law enforcement has yet to provide a full police report to the prosecutor. This frequently occurs in King County District Court where a total of 554 DUI charges were dismissed. Almost all of those King County DUI cases will be re-filed at a later time.

A total of 1661 people accused of a Washington State DUI had their case amended to a lessor offense (typically reckless driving or negligent driving first degree). There were 406 petitions for a deferred prosecution accepted and entered based on a Washington Driving Under the Influence or Physical Control charge in February. And finally, for the month of February, there were a total of 54 jury trials and 26 non-jury (bench) trials.