Steven Lawrence Dixon recently appeared in Sixth Judicial District Court for a sentencing hearing after being convicted by a jury trial of felony driving under the influence with a prior felony in December. Dixon was ordered to 30-90 months in prison.
The prison sentence was ordered to be served consecutive to the 12-34 months Dixon is currently serving for a fourth-degree arson charge he was convicted of late last year, also by jury trial.
Dixon’s legal counsel, Humboldt County Public Defender Matthew Stermitz said that even though Dixon was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, his client is a great guy and a hard worker, although does have a problem with alcohol.
Dixon was found to have a blood alcohol level of .095, just over the legal limit of .08. Stermitz asked the court to give his client no more than two years in prison for the conviction.
“If everybody operated their vehicles such as Mr. Dixon operated his motorcycle on that day the nation would have no fatalities,” said Stermitz. “I can drive from here to home and see people who are completely sober do dangerous things, Dixon did not do anything dangerous.”
Opposing legal counsel representing the state had a much different opinion on the matter.
“If everyone drove like him (Dixon) there would be no turn signals and there would be any number of issues, but the big thing here is that we know how he fared the first part of his journey when he was being followed by the cop, but we don’t know what could have happened later,” said Deputy District Attorney Max Stovall.
Dixon said he had consumed 3-4 beers on the night of the incident and didn’t feel over the limit or intoxicated in the way of endangering himself or others and that he would have gotten a ride home if he thought he was.
“These people don’t know me, I have no problem with not drinking; all the other tickets I got are old tickets, I don’t understand why I should still be getting punished for those tickets,” said Dixon.
Along with the prison sentence, Dixon was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine, $1,500 public defender fee, $25 administrative assessment fee and $3 DNA collection fee. There was no credit for time served in the sentence as the time served was previously credited to the sentence in the arson judgment of conviction.
