DUI conviction draws 8-20 years

Bill Gang

Friday, June 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A man with a history of alcoholism and no auto insurance was sentenced today to eight to 20 years in prison for a drunken driving accident that injured three members of a Pahrump family.

Alan Dale Spencer, 41, whose blood-alcohol level was 0.29 percent, or nearly three times the 0.10 percent level to prove drunken driving, also was injured and had to be brought into court in a wheelchair.

His twisted and swollen foot resulting from the Dec. 21 accident on State Route 16 near Rainbow Boulevard was suspended by a brace. His attorney said he may lose his leg.

Donna Maynard also arrived in District Judge Bill Maupin's courtroom in a wheelchair and told how she prays that she will be able to walk again someday.

"I used to love to dance with my husband," she said. "Now I wonder if I will be able to again and how much pain I'll be in if I do."

She and her husband, Steven Maynard, lamented that the incident has devastated them financially -- with medical bills nearing $400,000 -- and only promises more of the same. Two of their children suffered serious injuries.

She told how they had been shunned by "an uncaring bureaucratic system" that won't even provide food stamps.

"I'll bet you have no trouble getting the health care you need ... at state expense," Maynard said to Spencer, who hanged his head and wiped tears from his eyes.

"Everything we worked so hard for has been destroyed, but we are lucky to be alive if you consider the hell we are in to be living."

Her husband bitterly complained, "There's no real justice for us."

Spencer cried as he apologized to the family and said, "If I could lose my leg and if that would make them happy, I would."

Although Spencer faced the possibility of a 60-year sentence, Deputy Public Defender Pete Christiansen asked for mercy, noting the defendant "intentionally drove drunk but he didn't intentionally hurt anybody."

But Maupin said "a young family has had its resources destroyed and its soul devastated ... by a man with no prospects."

Although he ordered Spencer to pay $400,000 in restitution and recommended that the prison system seize any money he may make during his incarceration, the judge admitted there was "no real chance of restitution."

Maupin said to make the situation equitable, Spencer should be "indentured to the Maynard family for the rest of his life."