Opinion ID: 2625117
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Awareness of the risk

Text: Jeffries's heightened awareness of the risks of drinking and driving differentiates this case from other deaths involving drunk drivers. The evidence relevant to his awareness was strong. The parties stipulated that Jeffries had six prior DWI convictions between 1981 and 1996, four of them occurring in the 1990s. The parties also stipulated that Jeffries's license had been continuously revoked since 1989, that it would remain revoked until 2018, and that Jeffries was aware that his license had been revoked. [53] They also stipulated that a DWI conviction was the basis for the 2000 revocation. The state presented evidence that four times between 1989 and 1994 Alaska courts had ordered Jeffries as a condition of his probation to report to a probation program that screens offenders and assigns them to alcohol treatment programs and that he failed to comply with each order despite the possibility that he could be sent to prison for noncompliance. Finally, the state presented evidence that as a condition of his probation Jeffries was forbidden from drinking alcohol at the time of the most recent accident. There is no claim Jeffries did not have actual knowledge of his past drunk driving convictions and of the court orders requiring him to get treatment. In short, there was significant evidence that Jeffries had a heightened awareness of the dangerousness of his conduct, the need to refrain completely from any driving and to refrain completely from any drinking, and of the danger of driving intoxicated. As Superior Court Judge Dan A. Hensley explained in determining that evidence of Jeffries's past problems with alcohol was relevant to this inquiry: [A] person who drinks, drives, causes an accident, gets arrested, goes to jail, is ordered to alcohol treatment, ordered not to drink and then drinks and drives again, and then drinks and drives again, and then drinks and drives again, not only has the intellectual understanding of the risks associated with drinking and driving but also has the very real understanding. Which in my view is relevant to show the heightened awareness of those risks. Experience is the best teacher. The superior court was correct in its assessment. An intoxicated driver with a record as long as Jeffries's cannot possibly be unaware of the significant threat that his actions pose in the eyes of society. A reasonable jury could have inferred from this evidence that Jeffries had a heightened awareness of the risk of drinking and driving and could have given this factor substantial weight in its analysis under Neitzel. [54]