The DWI conviction against attorney Ron Bell has been reversed.
Bell, a prominent lawyer whose catchy “I sue drunk drivers” advertising campaign won him a quasi-celebrity status in Albuquerque, was convicted of DWI in Metropolitan Court on March 8.
On Tuesday, State District Court Judge Neil Candelaria sided with Bell in his appeal, ruling that the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputy who pulled Bell over lacked reasonable suspicion to question him about irrelevant things and then proceeded to conduct an unwarranted DWI investigation.
Attorney Ron Bell, shown in March, had his DWI conviction overturned on Wednesday. Bell has made a living targeting drunken drivers.
The deputy, Larry Allen, suspected Bell was in some way impaired and proceeded to question him about subjects such as whether he had grenades, rocket launchers or corpses in his car.
Allen said he was using that technique to gauge Bell’s truthfulness. Based on how Bell acted, Allen then called for a DWI officer, who conducted a formal sobriety investigation.
Bell had no alcohol in his system but later tested positive for amphetamine, a result of taking the drug Adderall for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Testimony during a three-day trial showed Bell had five times the amount of amphetamine that is normal for therapeutic purposes. Attorney Sam Bregman argued Bell never abused Adderall, and needed that quantity.
“Ron Bell never committed a crime, and the millions of people who are prescribed Adderall in this country can sleep better tonight,” Bregman said in an interview Wednesday. “… Ron Bell was not impaired by any drug in any way, shape or form. This was a bad cop who made a bad arrest.”
Sheriff’s Lt. David Knowles, who oversees the traffic DWI investigations unit, said Allen is an experienced traffic investigator with more than 17 years in law enforcement.
“He has been in our traffic investigations unit for several years and has been commended for the performance he has exhibited in those years,” Knowles said.
Knowles said the department has not had a chance to look over Candelaria’s decision.
“We just haven’t had an opportunity to have some interaction in-depth so we could understand what could happen and to see if there’s any steps we could take in the future,” he said.
Allen was off-duty when he pulled Bell over in June 2010 after allegedly seeing him speeding and weaving out of his lane on eastbound Montgomery at Tramway.
Allen reported that he noticed the attorney’s voice sounded different than he did in his TV commercials and that he was speaking in a “thick tongue.” He said he questioned Bell about the random subjects to gauge “his demeanor.”
Candelaria found Allen didn’t have reasonable suspicion to do so.
“Such questions, which expand the scope of the investigation, are not permitted in New Mexico, absent reasonable suspicion, irrespective of the deputy’s alleged intent to simply elicit truthful responses,” Candelaria wrote in his ruling.
Bregman said Bell has been vindicated.
“This officer should never even have gone down the path of an ill-advised DWI investigation. There was nothing that indicated he needed to go down that direction, and I think the Appellate Court saw that for what it was,” Bregman said.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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