Panel vacates guilty plea to 13th DUI

By Peter H. Milliken

The indictment was flawed and the judge erred, an appeals panel said.

YOUNGSTOWN — A three-judge panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals has unanimously vacated an Akron man’s guilty plea to his 13th drunken-driving charge and sent the matter back to the court where his plea was accepted for further action.

In August 2006, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court sentenced Randy H. Bragwell, 54, to six years in prison, fined him $5,000 and revoked his driver’s license for life.

The judge imposed the sentence after Bragwell pleaded guilty to the DUI offense with a repeat drunken-driving offender specification.

The sentence consisted of three years for the drunken-driving charge, plus three years for the repeat-offender specification.

Sebring police had arrested Bragwell for that offense March 28, 2006. As of August 2006, Bragwell had 11 prior DUI convictions since 1980, and his 12th DUI charge was then pending in Summit County.

In its decision rendered Monday, the appeals court gave two reasons for vacating Bragwell’s guilty plea to his 13th DUI charge and to the specification.

First, it ruled that Bragwell’s grand jury indictment on the repeat-offender specification attached to his 13th DUI charge was flawed because it didn’t include the required mention of five or more drunken-driving convictions within the previous 20 years.

Therefore, Judge Krichbaum lacked the authority to sentence Bragwell to the extra prison time for the repeat-offender specification, the appeals court said.

Second, the appeals court ruled that Judge Krichbaum erred by not informing Bragwell before he pleaded guilty that his sentences for the DUI offense and for the repeat-offender specification would have to be served consecutively. Conviction on the 13th DUI and the specification would each have carried a one-to-five-year prison term.

“You are a disaster waiting to happen,” Judge Krichbaum told Bragwell at his sentencing hearing. “It’s a gift from God for the rest of us that you haven’t hurt someone,” Judge Krichbaum added.

The appeals court panel consisted of Judges Gene Donofrio, Joseph J. Vukovich and Cheryl L. Waite.

milliken@vindy.com