{"id":2458587,"date":"2020-05-18T23:12:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T05:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/judge-reluctantly-accepts-aspen-womans-multi-dui-deal\/"},"modified":"2020-05-18T23:12:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T05:12:00","slug":"judge-reluctantly-accepts-aspen-womans-multi-dui-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/judge-reluctantly-accepts-aspen-womans-multi-dui-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge reluctantly accepts Aspen woman\u2019s multi-DUI deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"302\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/dogbitefollo-atd-052318-1-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/dogbitefollo-atd-052318-1-1.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/10\/dogbitefollo-atd-052318-1-1-300x146.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">A Jekyll-and-Hyde local woman arrested for drunken driving twice in a week last summer while out on bond for a third DUI should have been carted away to prison Monday, a judge said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cShe has shown herself to be a menace to society,\u201d District Judge Chris Seldin said. \u201cThat, to me, clearly warrants a Department of Corrections sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Leslee Francis, 56, however, was not sent to prison Monday and, instead, will spend the next four years on probation with the chance to wipe the felony DUI she pleaded guilty to last month from her permanent criminal record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI don\u2019t have another relapse in me,\u201d Francis told the judge. \u201cI\u2019m done. I\u2019m probably too old. I want to live a beautiful, clear, present life. I\u2019ve got great momentum and I\u2019m not going back, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Seldin said he had to think long and hard about whether to accept the plea deal Francis signed last month with the District Attorney\u2019s Office. While it\u2019s rare, judges do not have to accept plea deals, but the denial sends the case nearly back to square one in the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Seldin has presided over Francis\u2019 cases through her various arrests and her participation in Pitkin County\u2019s Recovery Court \u2014 which deals mainly with addiction issues \u2014 since he was appointed to the bench four-and-a-half years ago, and said Monday that he liked her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI do know Ms. Francis, and Ms. Francis is a nice person,\u201d Seldin said. \u201cShe was well-liked in Recovery Court.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">However, she also is \u201ca vivid example\u201d of a nice person on one hand and \u201can absolute menace to society when in the grips of addiction\u201d on the other, he said. Seldin noted the \u201cremarkable\u201d details of Francis\u2019 two DUI arrests last summer, when court records indicate she drove after taking sleeping pills.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">First, on July 30, Francis nearly a hit another car head-on while driving down Highway 82 at approximately 20 mph under the speed limit with her headlights off in the dark near the Maroon Creek Bridge. Four days later, after posting bond and leaving jail, Francis backed into concrete barriers at a local gas station before driving away and being pulled over in a \u201cstuperous state,\u201d Seldin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">And all that occurred, the judge said, while Francis was awaiting trial on yet another DUI, which occurred Mother\u2019s Day 2018 on Main Street with her teenage son in the car.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI find that to be wholly aggravated in the amount of disregard shown to the community and the inability to manage addiction,\u201d Seldin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Still, Francis has never been to prison before, and Seldin said he likely would have given her a two-year-sentence absent the plea deal. But she\u2019s already spent 191 days behind bars at the Pitkin County Jail in connection with the arrests, so the difference between that and the prison sentence, where she would been given those days of credit and earned the right to get out early with good behavior, was negligible, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Francis, in a clear voice, also said she was clean and sober and participating in a continuing care program she was dedicated to and happy with.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI feel like I\u2019m starting a new life,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m a different person than I was before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In the end, Seldin said he decided to honor the agreement between the DA\u2019s Office and Francis, though it came with a stern warning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cYou\u2019ve already earned a sentence to the Department of Corrections in my opinion,\u201d the judge said. \u201cIf (your case) comes back on a violation of probation, you have to consider yourself absolutely warned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\"><a href=\"mailto:jauslander@aspentimes.com\">jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/judge-reluctantly-accepts-aspen-womans-multi-dui-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Jekyll-and-Hyde local woman arrested for drunken driving twice in a week last summer while out on bond for a third DUI should have been carted away to prison Monday, a judge said. \u201cShe has shown herself to be a menace to society,\u201d District Judge Chris Seldin said. \u201cThat, to me, clearly warrants a Department [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2458587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 20:07:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}