A 52-year-old Sun Valley woman has been sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for her second felony DUI conviction.
At a sentencing hearing Monday, Blaine County 5th District Judge Robert Elgee ordered that Darcie Olsen serve a 22-month determinate sentence and a five-year indeterminate sentence. The judge gave Olsen credit for 252 days already spent in jail.
Olsen pleaded guilty to felony DUI in February.
In ordering the prison sentence, Elgee rejected a request from Ketchum attorney Andrew Parnes that his client be placed instead in a residential treatment program for at least a year.
Olsen’s conviction stemmed from an accident in Sun Valley on Aug. 14 when she crashed her vehicle through a fence at the intersection of Moritz Road and Trail Creek Road.
She was also convicted of felony DUI in Blaine County in 2010 and sentenced to 90 days in jail. According to court records, Olsen had misdemeanor DUI convictions in Blaine County in 2005 and 2007. She has at least two other DUI convictions in other states.
Olsen was originally scheduled to be sentenced on April 8, when Parnes made his initial request for placement in a residential treatment program. Elgee at that time postponed sentencing until Monday, saying he needed more information before pronouncing sentence.
At the April 8 hearing, Parnes said Olsen “suffers from a serious mental disorder” but that “she understands she needs to change her life,” further arguing that an extensive treatment program would help her do that.
But Elgee noted that Olsen has been through treatment programs before.
“Nothing works—that’s the bottom line here—nothing works,” the judge said. “It’s the repeated, repeated, repeated driving of a car. She’s had multiple chances, but she keeps coming back again and again and again.”
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
