Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Courts Across California Aren’t Telling The DMV About Deadly Drivers

By Lynn La, CALMATTERS

Gaudy Lemus, mother of Joseph Ramirez, visits his grave at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall on June 17, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

California courts have failed to report hundreds of vehicular manslaughter convictions to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles over the past five years, allowing deadly drivers to improperly keep their licenses, a CalMatters investigation has found.

Drivers like Marvin Salazar.

Salazar was convicted in May 2023 for felony vehicular manslaughter after a crash that killed his friend, court records show. Under California law, that’s supposed to be an automatic three-year loss of driving privileges.

But the Los Angeles County Superior Court didn’t report the conviction to the DMV. Two months later, the agency issued Salazar his most recent license. Since then, he has received two speeding tickets and been in another collision, records show.

• Gaudy Lemus, whose son, 18-year-old Joseph Ramirez, died in the crash: “How can he keep driving? We wanted consequences for him. Remove his driver’s license.”

Investigative reporters Lauren Hepler and Robert Lewis uncovered the error and others like it by cross-checking convictions in vehicular manslaughter cases against motorists’ DMV records, as part of an ongoing investigation. Earlier this year, CalMatters reported that the agency routinely allows people with horrifying histories of dangerous driving — including fatal crashes, DUIs and numerous tickets — to keep driving.

When courts were alerted to the problem, officials at most county court systems responded quickly, thanked CalMatters’ reporters for telling them, acknowledged the mistake and indicated that they would report the convictions to the DMV.

• Tara Leal, the court executive officer in Kern County: “They were errors on our part. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.”

The reporting is already forcing change. So far, nearly 200 drivers who’ve killed have had their driving privileges suspended or revoked as a result of CalMatters’ story, updated DMV reports show. While some already had a separate license suspension, 70 appear to have had a valid license before the agency took action in response to the story.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.