UPDATE: Fire Captain Guilty of Drunken Hit-Run Is Sent to Prison

In a dramatic court hearing this morning, a judge sentenced the Long Beach fire captain convicted in the drunken hit-and-run of a Seal Beach bicyclist to the maximum penalty of four years and four months in prison after he violated his probation by getting drunk off hand sanitizer while he was in jail.

"When I listen to the injuries of [the victim], what he had -- it’s a life sentence for that man. What it comes down to is an issue of public safety. I can't fix you," Judge Erick Larsh told John David Hines as he pronounced the sentence. “Mr. Hines, I don’t think you are a bad person per se … I wish you weren’t here. I wish that man hadn’t been hit. I wish you had stopped that day.”

Wearing a stark blue jail jumpsuit and whispering to his attorney through the bars of a holding cage, Hines sobbed as his wife and father pleaded for leniency on his behalf.

His wife, Long Beach Police Officer Fawn Hines, appealed for mercy while also chastising Larsh and the District Attorney’s Office for their handling of the case.

“I have never seen a case handled like this before,” she said, accusing the court of making an example out of her husband because of his high profile job. She blamed the court for pulling him out of a successful alcohol rehab program at Hoag Hospital to spend 90 days in prison for an evaluation. She also blamed the court for a beating Hines endured while incarcerated that resulted in broken teeth and ribs.

“Putting him in general population, knowing who he was married to, I feel, was a gross negligence on the part of the court,” she said.

As a police officer whose own brother was killed by a drunk driver, Hines says she knows the damage that alcoholism can do. She also said that alcoholism is a disease that can’t be treated in prison. Her husband, she said, needs to be treated in an alcohol rehab program.

In March, Hines was sentenced to four years and four months in state prison, but after he entered an alcohol rehab program at Hoag Hospital, Larsh suspended his sentence to a year in a local jail and five years of probation. However, Hines had been in Huntington Beach’s pay-to-stay jail for less than a month in January when guards found him heavily intoxicated from drinking hand sanitizer. He was transferred to the Orange County Jail to await today’s hearing

But even in the county jail, Hines couldn’t stay sober, said Prosecutor Andrew Katz. Hines got the “golden ticket” when his sentence was suspended, but he blew it, added Katz.

Anything short of his full prison sentence sends the message that defendants need only claim to have a serious alcohol problem to get out of being held accountable, Katz said. The crime was much more serious than the typical DUI, added Katz. Hines nearly killed someone, and then fled the scene without stopping to render aid, and, unlike most people, a fire captain is trained to help and has had enough experience treating accident victims to know how deadly drunken driving can be, he added.

“We are not dealing with the average person here,” said Katz. “He clearly doesn’t love himself … Why do we have any reason to believe he’s is going to care for others?”

The sentence shouldn’t be focused on what’s best for Hines’ rehabilitation, said Katz.

“The focus should entirely be on justice for the victim and what happened to the victim,” he said.

“Eleven months after the crime, he still hasn’t healed,” Katz said.

Cyclist Jeffrey Gordon had waited in court Friday morning to make a statement at the hearing but had to leave before the case was called because he was in physical pain, said Katz. Gordon lives with pain, requires epidural shots in his back and struggles to simply bend down and tie his shoe almost a year after the accident, Katz told the judge.

Still, Hines’ father Robert Hines, asked Larsh to take into account all the good that his son had done as a firefighter.

“John is not a person with a criminal past. To this day, he expresses concern and remorse for the victim,” said Robert Hines.

His relapse in jail stemmed from his estrangement from his wife and his distress at being told she would not let him see his three children, added Robert Hines.

“When your son tells you, ‘I just wanted to stop the pain,' I can only see this as a desperate plea for help,” said Robert Hines. “Your honor, my son is not a criminal. He is sick.”

Robert Hines noted the 300 character references filed on his son’s behalf, and told the judge that his son was the youngest recruit to take the Long Beach Fire Department’s test before serving the community for more than a decade as a firefighter.

In the end, however, Larsh was not persuaded. In giving Hines the maximum sentence minus 402 days for time served, he acknowledged that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has a poor track record for rehabilitating addicts. He also said that a stiff sentence for Hines is unlikely to have an impact on would-be drunken drivers.

“It’s not to deter anybody else,” said Larsh. “It’s just to protect the public safety.”

Earlier post: The Long Beach fire captain convicted in the drunken hit and run of a Seal Beach bicyclist may have his probation revoked today for allegedly getting drunk off hand sanitizer at Huntington Beach’s pay-to-stay jail, where he was serving time in lieu of state prison.

The judge will have the option of revoking John David Hines’ probation, sending him to state prison for his full four-year and four-month prison sentence. In November, that sentence was suspended on the condition that he serves a year in a local jail and completes five years of probation.

Hines, 38, was transferred back to the Orange County Jail in January after officers at the Huntington Beach jail allegedly found him intoxicated.

His suspended sentence had taken into account the fact that Hines had no criminal record and had undergone treatment for alcohol addiction. It was granted even though prosecutor Andrew Katz argued for a harsher punishment because Hines was three times the legal limit when he struck a rider on Westminster Avenue and sped away as witnesses chased him, screaming for him to stop.

The reduced sentence also came over the objections of his victim Jeffrey Gordon, who told the court he may never fully recover and was upset that Hines "may suffer little or no consequences for his actions."

Hines had been in the Huntington Beach jail for less than a month when he staggered and appeared to be intoxicated, Huntington Beach Police Lt. Mike Freeman said in January.

“As part of his duties as a trustee at the jail, he does janitorial work, cleaning around the jail and the station,” Freeman said. “He was drinking some of the cleaning products provided to him to do janitorial work.”

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS

Should the judge send him to prison for four years or give him another chance?