By TOM McLAUGHLIN
Sun Staff Writer
Michael Acree says he gave up driving 15 years ago because his poor
health made him a potential danger behind the wheel. For trips to the
grocery store, pharmacy and bank, Acree bought a moped.
“I have to get around because they don’t have public transportation
around here. I figured if someone got killed [in a wreck] at least it
would be me. I wouldn’t be taking out some family,” said the
50-year-old Acree, who resides in the tiny community of Brodnax on the
Mecklenburg-Brunswick county line.
Acree may have kept a low profile on his moped — “they don’t have to be
licensed, they don’t have to be insured and you can’t beat 100 miles a
gallon” — but he isn’t immune to the traffic laws of Virginia. Now the
Vietnam veteran living on a $910 monthly pension has a new problem to
worry about: how to pay thousands of dollars in traffic costs incurred
after he ran a stoplight in South Hill on July 5.
Acree is among of the first batch of offenders to fall under Virginia’s
new abusive driver law, which imposes massive fines for offenses
ranging from drunk driving to reckless driving. He’s different from
most, however, in that he wasn’t driving a car when he was pulled over
by South Hill police, but “crossing the street on what basically was a
riding lawnmower,” says his neighbor and friend, Monroe Jones of nearby
White Plains.
None of which matters in the court of law, Acree’s lawyer and local
prosecutors agree. Under Virginia’s implied consent provision, anyone
operating a motor vehicle on state highways is bound by the rules of
the road.
In addition to writing up Acree for running a red light at the corner
of East Atlantic and Shaw Street in South Hill, Town Officer T.O.
Solomon also ticketed him that day for driving while intoxicated — a
first offense — and refusing a breath/blood test. Acree was convicted
of DWI and the other charges in Mecklenburg General District Court on
Aug. 6. He is appealing all the convictions except failure to obey a
traffic signal. His trial date in Circuit Court is pending.
Acree’s attorney, Andrew Adams of the Halifax/Mecklenburg Public
Defender’s office, argued before a judge that Acree suffers from severe
medical conditions that could be mistaken for intoxication.
“He’s got something that makes his speech slurred all the time, that
makes his eyesight blurry, and can affect his mobility,” said Adams.
“He has a string of conditions that affect him in various ways, but his
mobility was affected, yes.
“I thought we had strong arguments that the judge disagreed with,” said
Adams. “And he’s free to do that. He’s the judge.”
But Mecklenburg County Commonwealth’s Attorney Nora Miller, who
prosecuted the case, countered that “this guy is not the righteous
cause” that critics may want to cite against the state’s new bad driver
law. “The evidence was compelling in the district court” that Acree was
driving while impaired on the afternoon of July 5, Miller argued.
“He was tried and his arguments were rejected by a judge,” said Miller,
who said she expects a similar outcome in Circuit Court.

The $3,000 traffic stop
Whether Acree will be able to pay the hefty fines and fees arrayed
against him is a more uncertain proposition for the court.
Although Acree declined to appeal the charge of failing to obey a
traffic signal, he hasn’t paid the $110 fine, either. And with his
other convictions on hold in Circuit Court, it may take weeks or months
before the full brunt of the penalty is felt. If Acree loses his
appeal, he’ll likely have to pay around fines, costs and fees of around
$3,000, not including the additional cost of enrolling in VASAP.
It’s a tab Acree says he can’t even begin to pay.
“I barely got enough money to live on as it is. I feel sorry for
anybody on a fixed income. People think you’ve got it made, but it’s
sort of a struggle every day,” he said.
The civil remedial fees imposed under Virginia’s new bad driver law
make up the bulk of Acre’s pending bill. A first offense DUI carries a
fee of $2,250 in three $750 installments over three years. The fees
have generated considerable controversy, with critics charging, among
other things, that the fees fall hardest on people who already exist on
the margins of society.
Living behind his mother’s house in a ramshackle trailer, the most
valuable part of which just may be the medicine cabinet, Acree is
certainly a man living on the edge. Having suffered two strokes and
hobbled by seizures, blackouts and constant pain, he has a tabletop set
aside for his various medications, some of which he admits make him
feel sluggish and unsteady.
“I’ve had accidents on the moped,” he admits. “I’ve never run into
anybody or anything before, but I’ve blacked out and wrecked. That’s
why I don’t drive a vehicle or a car.”
His speech is noticeably slurred and his gait can be unsteady. “I have
a hard time remembering stuff,” said Acree, responding to a question.
“I guess it’s due to being old and the medication, one of the two.”
On the day he was pulled over in South Hill, Acree said he was headed
to the bank. But first he stopped at the RaceTrac convenience store
when he saw what appeared to be a homeless man on the curb. He bought a
sandwich and shared it with the man.
“I was homeless a long time myself when I got back from ‘Nam,” said
Acree, who moved back home to the South Hill area about six years ago.
For years after the war he drifted around New Mexico, Arizona and
California, not ready to go back home to Brodnax.
“I was just a kid” in Vietnam, said Acree. “I kinda grew up in a
violent home, a lot of violence. I had to get away from it.”
"I know what it's like to be there," he said of the homeless man. "I
knew that boy was hungry.
Acree contends that as he sat outside the RaceTrac with the homeless
man, a South Hill police officer took notice. Acree said the officer
rode by six times — “I take it he was already profiling me.” After
finishing the sandwich, Acree got on his moped and headed down the busy
stretch of street near the Interstate 85-Route 58 intersection.
Acree claims there was traffic close on his tail when he scooted
through the red light at Shaw Street — it had been raining that day, he
says, and he was afraid to stop too quickly. “I was guilty of running
the red light, but on the other hand the other lane was open and I felt
it was unsafe to stop,” he said.
Officer Solomon, who did not return repeated calls seeking comment for
this story, pulled Acree over for running the light. He also
administered a field sobriety test and, depending on whose story you
believe, asked Acree to either take a breath or blood alcohol test.
Acree contends it was the latter, and he refused “because I told [the
officer] I get enough needles stuck in me at the vets hospital.”
Prosecutors and Acree’s lawyer, recounting Solomon’s court testimony,
say the officer asked for a breath test, which Acree refused.
“There may have been some confusion on Mr. Acree’s part” regarding the
requirement to submit to a breath test, said Adams, the public
defender.
Miller said the evidence showed Acree was intoxicated from taking his
medications, or from drinking alcohol, or both. “There are a variety of
scenarios under which a person can be charged and convicted of driving
under the influence,” she said. “It’s not just alcohol.”
Acree admits to sharing a few swigs of wine that day with a friend, but
said “it was just two swallows. It was between two people. There
weren’t even two inches in the bottle. I’ve taken a lot more and passed
the breathalyzer.”

Barely getting by
If he loses his DWI appeal, Acree fears he may end up going to jail
because he can’t afford to pay the civil remedial fees. If that
happens, he’ll lose his veterans’ prescription drug benefits, too, upon
which he depends heavily.
Acree said his monthly VA pension check is barely enough to cover
expenses, especially during those times when he has to hire a driver to
take him to McGuire Veterans Hospital in Richmond, a not-infrequent
occurrence.
“I pay people to take me to the hospital. That’s one, two, three, four
times a month sometimes. Being on a fixed income, that’s hard. But
you’ve got to go,” he said.
“When you have to pay $50 for someone to take you to the hospital, that
puts a strain on you.”
Monroe Jones, the friend from White Plains, says of Acree, “this
gentleman here is a good neighbor of mine. He helps me on the farm.
He’s got his problems like everybody else.
“Is he complying with the system? They’re supposed to lock him up and
take care of him the rest of his life? It’s absolutely ridiculous,”
said Jones, a retired farmer and employee at Cardinal Chemical in South
Hill.
“It’s one of those heartbreakers. It makes no sense really. Personally
I feel like it’s [the civil remedial fees] are unconstitutional,” Jones
added.
Adams, the public defender, says the Halifax/Mecklenburg office is
starting to see more cases of people who are convicted of traffic
offenses and can’t pay the civil remedial fees for economic reasons.
“We get a lot of driving on suspended [license] cases where the problem
is the failure to pay fines or car insurance in the first place,” said
Adams. “I think it’s going to be the cause of a lot of problems, and as
I understand it, that’s the common agreement in the legal community.”
Acree says he appealed his case mostly because he couldn’t afford to
shell out the thousand-dollars-plus in fees and fines for the DWI
conviction — besides the first installment of $750 for the civil
remedial fee, the misdemeanor offense itself carries a $250 fine. The
only thing he has been able to decide in the wake of the episode has
been to sell his moped.
“If I have it, I’m going to drive it,” he said. “I just figured that
would be another charge.”
Asked how he gets around nowadays, Acree answered, “I ain’t.”
It’s hard for him not to be depressed about the situation, but Acree
says he resists the temptation to walk away from his problems. “It
makes me want to get on a Greyhound bus,” he said. “But I ain’t
running.”