If Castle is found guilty on the other felony eluding charge, it would mark his third felony conviction (Castle's crimes do not qualify under the state's Three Strikes law, which can lead to life in prison). In 1992, with five DUI arrests to his credit, Castle was convicted of manufacturing drugs with intent to sell after authorities busted his 100-plant home-grow marijuana business in Marysville. Using the alias George Rollin Dukes Jr., Castle originally failed to show for trial, jumping bail. Once in custody, he pled guilty to the drug charge in exchange for a 45-day sentence, was fined $1,800, and was put on 12 months probation. Over the next six years, he failed to report as required to community corrections and pay his full tab, leading to a 30-day suspended sentence. He did, however, continue to drink and drive, racking up four more DUI charges in that period.
Rep. Lantz says she's sorry to hear the prolific Castle is not felony-eligible under the new DUI law, since he could be the statute's poster boy. "When we first drew up the law," she says, "we set the bar at five convictions in seven years. Then we revised it to ten years, to extend it, to get the hard-core offenders like him."
Courtesy of KOMO-TV
Multiple Taserings have done nothing to diminish Castle’s propensity to drink and drive.
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Nevertheless, as prosecutions begin to mount, Lantz is upbeat about the statute, and sees promise in another new DUI law, passed this year, which requires license revocation for first-time offenders, who will be provided a special limited license and must equip their cars with an ignition interlock device, into which a driver must blow a sober breath before the car can be started. "This way," says Lantz, "we can be sure the person is not going to drive drunk, but he'll still have a license to get to work and to pick up the kids at day care."
Other new DUI amendments didn't make the cut in Olympia this year, including sobriety checkpoints and "scarlet" (fluorescent yellow, actually) license plates that would be displayed on a convicted drunk driver's vehicle. So far, however, laws old or new haven't seemed to stop road warriors such as Castle. For close to a quarter-century, pedal to the metal, he has repeatedly outdistanced justice. And he may not be done yet.
On March 4, with Castle's much-delayed 2006 Seattle DUI case heading into its second year, Judge Holifield sat down with the municipal court calendar in front of him. It said Castle, after 25 assorted hearings, was supposed to go to trial that day.
Except Holifield had just been told another delay was needed.
"All right, what are we going to do with this case?" Holifield asked. "Is this an Ann Marie Gordon case?"
"It is, your honor," said public defender Richards, seated next to Castle.
Ann Marie Gordon is the former manager of the Washington State Toxicology Lab, which prepares and tests a solution used in the DataMaster (successor to the Breathalyzer) breath-test instruments. Gordon quit last year following allegations that she lied about the accuracy of testing, putting perhaps thousands of DUI cases in legal limbo. Courts are still deciding how to deal with the possibly tainted breath evidence from that period, all of which, defense attorneys contend, should be tossed.
In the meantime, cases sit and wait, Castle's among them: Judge Holifield tentatively set his next trial date for May 6, and Castle returned to his cell. But if the DataMaster evidence is eventually thrown out, he could avoid conviction, thus heading off that potential felony charge for DUI arrest No. 16.
How about that? One of the few times Bob Castle agreed to blow into a tube, it blew back a kiss.
randerson@seattleweekly.com
