The third time may not have been a charm, but it was a resolution for Jerry Lewis Morrison.
After two plea deals were rejected last fall, the 57-year-old Charlottesville man, often cited for drunk driving, found a judge to accept his guilty plea on Sept. 12 and delivered an abject apology.
“I get it, I get it,” said Morrison. “I put a lot of people’s lives at risk.”
Morrison’s remarks included something rarely heard from a criminal defendant: appreciation for the prosecutor. In this case, the recipient was Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Szwabowski.
“You’re doing your job,” Morrison said as he nodded toward Szwabowski. “I deserve it. I apologize.”
Morrison admitted that he’d drunkenly gotten behind the wheel of a car more than just the five times for which he’d been charged in recent years.
“I can’t tell you how many times I drove like this,” Morrison said. “But this time I got caught.”
Telling the court that he was the sixth of 11 children, Morrison recounted a recent run of bad breaks. His marriage ended, he told the court, and even a 90-day stay at an in-patient treatment facility in Galax did not cure his alcohol problem.
What did?
“The jail saved me,” he said.
Morrison has been held since July of last year.
“Fourteen months is a long time to reflect on a lot of things in my past,” he testified.
He said that he has found a relationship both with Alcoholics Anonymous and with his religious hero, Jesus Christ. He said he hopes that when released from jail he can volunteer at soup kitchens and with homeless people.
“Mr. Morrison has been extremely up front and honest with everyone involved,” said his lawyer, Hayley Setear. “He has had time to work on himself.”
At this Sept. 12 Albemarle County Circuit Court hearing, Morrison pleaded guilty to two felony charges of a third or subsequent DUI. The last two incidents bring Morrison’s cumulative drunk driving convictions since 2017 to five.
The most recent incident came July 22, 2024, when Morrison was on bail and without a driver’s license due to a drunk driving arrest nine months prior. The same arresting officer spotted him behind the wheel of vehicle near the Rio Hill Shopping Center north of Charlottesville, and his blood-alcohol level tested at 0.25%, more than three times the legal limit.
“You should be glad and everyone in the community is glad that you didn’t strike anybody,” Judge David Barredo told Morrison. “You could have taken somebody’s life.”
Two prior judges considering the case in October refused to approve a prior deal that called for a 90-day sentence. Barredo approved a revised deal giving Morrison one year and six months.
The judge also indefinitely revoked Morrison’s driver’s license, banned him from all Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority stores, assigned a $2,000 fine, and decreed two years of probation, with the first year designated as “intensive,” plus five years of good behavior.
With good behavior credits, Morrison was released Sept. 17 from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com