Vehicles: driving offenses: punishment.

(1) Existing law requires, if a person is convicted of a specified driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offense and the offense occurred within 10 years of 2, or 3 or more prior specified DUI offenses that resulted in a conviction, that the person be punished by enhanced penalties, and that the person's privilege to operate a motor vehicle be revoked by the department for a period of 2, 3, 4, or 5 years, as applicable. This bill would delete the 10-year limitation. In addition, the bill would increase the punishment for driving under the influence of alcohol or a drug without causing bodily injury with 2 prior separate convictions for specified DUI offenses, from imprisonment in a county jail for not less than 120 days nor more than one year, to imprisonment in the state prison, nor in a county jail for not less than 180 days no more than one year. (2) Existing law requires the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to a person, other than himself or herself, or in the death of a person to immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the accident and provide specified personal information to the injured person or the occupants of the other vehicle and to any traffic or police officer at the scene of the accident. In the case of the death of any person and the absence of a traffic or police officer at the scene of the accident, the driver of the vehicle is required to report the accident to the nearest office of the Department of the Highway Patrol or office of a duly authorized police authority and submit the required personal information. Existing law requires, among other things, that a person who flees the scene of the crime after committing vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, or gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, upon conviction of any of those crimes, in addition and consecutive to the punishment prescribed, be punished by an additional term of imprisonment of 5 years in the state prison. This bill would add murder to the above-described crimes, thereby subjecting a person who flees the scene of the crime after committing murder, upon a conviction, to an additional 5-year state prison term.