A Ukiah woman who was at the wheel of a car that smashed through her neighbors' fence and into their house while they entertained in their backyard will face trial on a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon, a Mendocino County judge ruled Tuesday.
Such an assault charge is unusual because nobody was injured in the wreck and there is no sign that the woman, Joan Ellen Rainville, 53, specifically intended to hurt anyone.
But prosecutors argued at a preliminary hearing last week that Rainville's long history of alcohol-related accidents and at least one specific warning from the court about the danger posed to human life by impaired driving justify the charge. The warning, known as the Watson Advisement, ensures defendants that they can be charged with murder in the future if they cause an alcohol-related traffic fatality and is the basis for the "implied malice" theory mounted in the Rainville case.
Her lawyer, Justin Petersen, argued, however, that it was simple mere accident that Raiinville hit the accelerator rather than the brake that night.
Police said she had to be pulled from the car after a bystander turned off the engine, and she left the scene to go back to her apartment seeming not to understand the gravity of what had happened, though she said her mother had been driving the car. Petersen suggested his client did not have the awareness necessary to commit the "willful act" that must be proven to convict her of the felony.
If a jury agrees with Petersen, Rainville's conduct would not meet the threshhold necessary to convict her of assault with a deadly weapon.
Police said Rainville was heavily intoxicated at the time of the May 26 incident. She was in her mother's Toyota Camry in the parking lot of her apartment complex when she accelerated, crashed through a fence into the yard, and then drove up on an elevated concrete pad and into an exterior wall.
Four people were in the backyard at the time. An 8-year-old boy was asleep on the other side of the battered wall.
It was Rainville's second alcohol-related crash this year and her fifth impaired driving offense since 1996, prosecutors say.
Deputy District Attorney Matt Hubley said the mere act of getting behind the wheel of a car — given Rainville's consumption of alcohol, her history of arrests and collisions, and her presumptive knowledge of the dangers posed by drunken driving — should be enough to justify charging her with assault.
Hubley said Rainville received the mandatory notice given by the court when she pleaded guilty to a Feb. 10 alcohol-related collision, requiring she acknowledge that impaired driving is "extremely dangerous to human life" and can lead to a murder charge if someone dies as a result.
"She was so close to killing not only one person, but a couple people" in the May incident, he said.
Rainville has now had three alcohol-related crashes, all with blood-alcohol levels three and four times the legal limits, and all occurred within seconds of getting behind the wheel, Hubley said.
Rainville is scheduled to return to court Aug. 27.
Besides the assault charge, Rainville is charged with several misdemeanors, including driving with a suspended license, driving without a required interlock device, drunken driving and driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08 percent, Hubley said.
You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.
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