Of drivers who are convicted of Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle
[sometimes called Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle], how many
injure or kill others in the course of committing the crime? Or,
alternatively, how many people are killed or injured as a result of
conduct by individuals who are convicted of Unauthorized Use of a
Vehicle?

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Clarification of Question by mwallens-ga on 09 Apr 2004 19:46 PDT

Please note that I am only interested in individuals who are convicted
of Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle.  I am not interested in statistics
for individuals charged with reckless driving, driving under the
influence, or vehicular assault.

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 10 Apr 2004 15:46 PDT

Dear mwallens-ga ;

I am really trying to help you find an alternative means of making
your point while standing by my premise that statistics related to
Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle are not reliable, nor probably
even available. Add to this the modern day fact that many larger
metropolitan law enforcement agencies often do not even investigate
vehicle thefts any longer unless violence, force or the threat of
violence was reportedly present. The reporting of these crimes are
left to the discretion of the owner to report by telephone of by mail
in jurisdictions like Portland, Houston, New York, San Francisco and
many others. These incidents are indeed eventually recorded as part of
the standardized Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for statistical purposes
but they are lumped into the same category as Motor Vehicle Theft,
leaving the end result grossly accurate for the purposes of
subcategorizing or subdividing these crimes.

Motor vehicle theft is the unlawful taking or attempted taking of a
motorized road vehicle owned by another with the intent to deprive the
owner of it permanently or temporarily.

UUMV was originally intended to mean the failure to return an
entrusted motor vehicle to its owner or to a place designated by its
owner (i.e., borrowing a car and not coming back with it, running an
authorized errand in a friend?s car but going to an unauthorized place
instead, failure to return a rental car, etc)

Because UUMV is now commonly used as a means of plea bargaining
vehicle theft charges, virtually all statistics related to UUMV are
factually unreliable.

As for my take on the plea-bargaining issue and my personal
observation of the trends toward offering accused individuals an
opportunity to negotiate smaller penalties by pleading guilty or no
contest to a lesser charge or Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle,
such a trend is well documented. I would direct your attention to one
example, this supportive memorandum for a Bill in the State of New
York that clearly and directly says in part:

?As the sponsor's memorandum details, the effect of a recent Court of
Appeals decision has been to subject individuals in possession of
stolen vehicles to the lesser charge of unauthorized use of a motor
vehicle rather than criminal possession of a stolen property, which
carries stronger penalties.?

MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF SENATE 621 BY SENATOR PADAVAN, ET AL.
http://www.aaanys.com/S621.htm

The fact that those charged with motor vehicle theft and similar theft
related charges like those I mentioned earlier are being routinely
offered the lesser option of UUMV is no secret and is an unashamedly
and publicly acknowledged adjudication technique in many jurisdiction
as evidenced by this public memorandum.

As I mentioned the statistics related to this crime and other
subsequent or co-offenses are not well documented and the issue, for
statistical purposes, is confusing at best. However, if you search
for: "unauthorized use of a motor vehicle" "plea bargain" you will
find case after case in which persons were originally accused of
committing murder, manslaughter, negligent homicide, robbery,
burglary, battery, assault, kidnapping, felony DWI, felony leaving the
scene of an accident and a host of other violent crimes in conjunction
with the offense. So many in fact that you could probably argue, on
this point at least in lieu of actual statistics, with a relative
degree of confidence that this certainly ?seems? to be the norm since
virtually every mention of the crime in cased documented on the
internet also mention co-offenses of a decidedly violent nature:

GOOGLE SEARCH
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22unauthorized+use+of+a+motor+vehicle%22+%22plea+bargain%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&n=20&fl=0&x=wrt

Perhaps you can justify your argument based on the overwhelming number
of cases you can cite where the circumstances you describe existed
rather than chasing after inaccurate statistics that I still insist to
not exist.

I?m looking forward to hearing back from you in hopes that this has
provided you with some valuable information and possible a new
direction and means of making your case. Should you decide to go this
route I?d be happy to find some significant cases for you to help you
build a position and support on the matter if you choose to use this
method as an alternative.

Regards;
Tutuzdad-ga

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Clarification of Question by mwallens-ga on 10 Apr 2004 15:57 PDT

Ack! I just read the assignment a little more closely, and I'm not
allowed to use sources like Google Answers. I'm happy to pay you for
your time, but I'm canceling the question because I can't use
information gathered from it.

Being a member of the law enforcement community myself and having
significant knowledge on the sybject, it might be import to consider
that Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle is often a lesser charge of Vehicle
Theft (or a variety of terms related to or indicative of the theft of
a vehicle). Many people charged with vehicle theft, joy-riding,
car-jacking, etc. end up actually being convicted of Unauthorized Use
either as a matter of plea bargaining or because the jury found them
guilty of the lesser offense instead.

Having mentioned that, it may, as I said, be important to note that
not everyone convicted of Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle was ever
actually charged with that specific crime, and not everyone convicted
of Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle even actually commited the crime, but
chose instead by negotiated agreement to plead guilty to it rather
than be convicted of a more serious offense. This practice is a common
occurence, in fact, this very scenario has played out in my personal
professional experience more times than I can recount. I would even
venture to say that MOST people who end up being convicted of
Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle actually commited one of the other
crimes I mentioned thus rendering any statistics about this specific
offense grossly innaccurate. With that in mind, I believe that any
statistics, if they exist (which I doubt) would not take this fact
into account therefore it is almost certainly impossible to answer
your question accurately. Finding statistics about this particular
crime and any subsequent offense committed in conjunction with the
crime would be tantamount to asking how many people convicted of the
lesser offense of loitering were actually panhandling. It just isn't
possible to know.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Tutuzdad,

I am aware that most people convicted of UUV are initially charged
with (or also convicted of) more serious offenses.  If you can find a
citable source that says basically what you said in your comment (i.e.
that most people convicted of UUV are charged with more serious
offenses, ones that might count as crimes of violence under the
federal sentencing guidelines), I'll consider my question answered.

Are you aware that in 1999 the United States District Court for the
Western District of Texas ruled that UUMV is, in itself, now
considered an act of violence for sentencing purposes?

"The sole issue in this appeal is whether, by its nature, the offense
of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle qualifies as a crime of
violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16. Defendant-Appellant Rodrigo
Galvan-Rodruiguez ("Galvan") challenges the district court's holding
that his prior conviction for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle is a
crime of violence, and therefore an "aggravated felony," for purposes
of enhancing his sentence for illegal entry and reentry into the
United States by 16 levels pursuant to § 2L1.2(b)(2) of the United
States Sentencing Guidelines ("U.S.S.G." or "the Guidelines").
Concluding that unauthorized use of a motor vehicle is a crime of
violence, thereby justifying a 16 level enhancement, we affirm
Galvan's sentence."

THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/97/97-50901-CR0.HTM


tutuzdad-ga

Other cases have affirmed this:

"There we held that unauthorized use of a motor vehicle is indeed a
crime of violence under [United States Sentencing Guideline] §
4B1.2(a)(2)."
LAW.COM
http://www.law.com/jsp/decisionstate.jsp?id=1028321271179

tutuzdad-ga

I sifted through the 5th Circuit cases a while back, and I've read
Jackson, Charles, Trejo-Galvan, and Galvan-Rodriguez, among others. 
My complements on finding them - you're obviously a professional. 
Unfortunately, I'm not so much interested in 5th Circuit precedent for
the purposes of my question here, since it is not binding in my
jurisdiction.  I'm pretty much set with my own case research.

I'm hoping that you can help me find statistical data about the number
of people injured or killed by individuals convicted of UUV, so that I
can make public policy arguments about why it should be considered a
crime of violence.   If you can find a source that says that UUV is
often or almost always used as a plea bargaining tool for other, more
serious (violent) crimes, then I can argue that it is often associated
with conduct that meets the statutory requirements of a crime of
violence.

thanks for your help