CHARLOTTE AMALIE — A St. Thomas taxi driver has been ordered by a judge not to take fares for three months after being arrested for a second time on drunk driving charges.
Melvin Lee James was arrested at 10:30 p.m. Saturday and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and negligent driving, Superior Court documents indicate.
An officer in a marked patrol car on Julian Jackson Drive said he saw a silver Honda Civic “swerving in the roadway in both lanes numerous times,” according to a sworn affidavit filed by Virgin Islands Police Department.
The officer stopped the vehicle and made contact with the driver, Evans, who “was unable to sit still” and “appeared to be incoherent,” according to the affidavit. The officer noticed “that his eyes appeared extremely red,” and when James stepped out of the vehicle, the officer saw what appeared to be marijuana and a half-empty beer tucked into the driver’s seat.
As the officer attempted to conduct a standard field sobriety test, James “was very aggressive, he was demanding me to allow him to get his car so that he can drive home,” so the officer placed him in handcuffs, according to the affidavit. As the officer drove him to the police station “Mr. James continued to yell and talk to himself,” and the officer said he failed every standard sobriety test he was administered, including “the walk and turn,” and standing on one leg.
Virgin Islands law assumes that anyone driving a motor vehicle in the territory “is deemed to have given consent to the chemical testing of their blood, breath or urine” for blood alcohol content if a police officer has reason to believe they were driving under the influence of alcohol.
James refused to submit to a chemical test of his blood alcohol content, but admitted to police that he’d consumed two beers, “several cane rum shots,” and was smoking marijuana at the food van on Brewer’s Beach before he left to drive home, the affidavit indicated.
Unable to post $1,000 cash, James was remanded to the custody of the Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections pending an advice-of-rights hearing Monday.
Assistant V.I. Attorney General Brenda Scales said James has had “numerous contacts and convictions with the criminal justice system,” including a 2012 arrest for driving under the influence, and “his driving history is not that great, so we do ask for the driver’s license.”
The disposition of the 2012 case is unclear, Scales said, but Magistrate Judge Carolyn Hermon-Percell said that “he would be within the 10-year” window to trigger enhanced felony charges for a second drunken driving arrest.
Territorial Public Defender Paula Norkaitis said James is a self-employed taxi driver, and asked that he be released from jail after posting 10 percent of his bond in cash.
The judge said his refusal to submit to a Breathalyzer means his driver’s license is automatically suspended for 90 days, so “he cannot run a taxi” during that time.
She agreed that he may post $100 cash, and ordered him to adhere to a curfew of 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily.