Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. The legal system does.
In Sunday’s third installment of a Post-Dispatch series on loopholes in Missouri’s drunk driving laws, we learned that the state law that mandates a one year-suspension of driving privileges for drivers who refuse to take a breathalyzer test often is a joke.
In earlier installments in the series, a team of reporters led by Joe Mahr and Jeremy Kohler informed us that the law that says persistent drunk drivers will be charged with felony counts and put into prison often is a joke, too.
The idea that drunk-driving convictions will show up on drivers’ records, especially for repeat offenders? Again, a joke.
Are we seeing a pattern here?
Despite hard work by some police officers, prosecutors and judges — but sadly, not all of them — and despite the deaths, injuries and heartache caused by drunk drivers, Missouri’s drunk driving laws too often are a joke — particularly in the St. Louis area.
Friends don’t let friends drink and drive. The legal system does.
Take the breathalyzer deal. It’s supposed to be automatic: Blow a 0.08 BAC (blood alcohol content) or higher, and you lose your license for 90 days. Refuse the breathalyzer, and you lose your license for a year.
But how do they convict you without evidence of your BAC? They have to haul you to the station, get a warrant to draw blood, get a somebody to draw it, label it, test it and store it properly.
The procedure is so cumbersome that it is used only in the most serious cases. The rest of the time, defendants lawyer up — and there are thousands of traffic law lawyers who know how the system works. They file an appeal with a circuit court, meaning their clients can continue driving until the case is heard.
And when the case is heard, where’s the evidence? Maybe the defendant first flunked a field sobriety test, but cops and other witnesses have to be found. It often becomes a he-said, she-said deal.
So between July 1, 2008, and June 30 of this year, St. Louis-area prosecutors made 1,395 deals. In return for guilty pleas, fines, community service and, sometimes, alcohol treatment programs, the defendants keep the DWI off their records and get to keep driving.
Maybe, for first-time offenders who don’t hurt or injure someone, this can be defended. But many repeat offenders have had previous DWIs erased in plea bargains, so it’s hard to know who’s really a first-time offender.
There are solutions, as we’ve noted before, but all of them would cost money: an improved statewide database; more cops and prosecutors and circuit court judges allocated to drunk driving cases; more enforcement by the Department of Revenue; more special drunk driving courts like the one in St. Charles County and more treatment programs.
Gov. Jay Nixon has summoned lawmakers, prosecutors, cops and judges to a “summit” on the problem for Wednesday. Here’s an idea:
At $2 a gallon, Missouri has the fifth-lowest tax on hard liquor among the 50 states. And, thanks to powerful brewing interests in both states, Missouri and Wisconsin have the lowest beer taxes (6 cents a gallon) among all 50 states.
Missouri should raise its liquor and beer taxes to cover the cost of serious drunk driving enforcement. Anything else is just a joke.
You have a prosecutor named Robert Mccullough who doesnt back up his police officers.They try to put these guys in jail ,he allows them to get out again, and again, and again.Ask any St.Louis cop!
Driving is a necessity for most people. Drinking is not. So instead of suspending the driver’s license, take away the right to drink. There would be no hardship exceptions, no “but I have to drive to work” excuses. Put an endorsement on the driver’s license so that they can’t get into bars or purchase liquor at the grocery store. Make it a criminal offense to provide a banned drinker with alcohol, with the individual employee (or friend) personally liable for the offense.
Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely we should increase Missouri’s excise fees (it’s been forty years since they’ve been increased) and use that money to address drunk driving in a no-nonsense manner. Only problem with this idea is that it makes too much sense. Given the mentality of our general assembly, not ot mention their subservience to the lobbyists at Anheuser-Busch, they likely wouldn’t have the vision or intellect to see this as making the sense that it does.
dragginslayer - A tax increase won’t make any difference, because this isn’t a revenue problem, it’s a policy problem. As long as state law permits municipal judges to “plea bargain” with drunk drivers to keep the offense off the books in exchange for a large fine, it will continue to happen.
The editorial board’s solution for all problems great and small; Throw some taxpayer dollars at it.
The apprehensions are there. The evidence is there. The courts are there.
The government is inept in doing its job. Now explain again how rewarding that dysfunction with more taxpayer dollars fixes the problem.
The one increase in government spending that would have an impact is adding prison beds to accommodate repeat offenders. Drunk driving is just another form of assault with a deadly weapon. Swift and certain accountability will deter that reckless behavior for most people. More ineffective layers of dysfunctional government bureaucracy will not.
Nick—You have a good idea in theory, however if people want to get alcohol, they will find a way. They will have someone they can go to any time, just like a drug addict, to get it from. Unfortunately until people decide to stop putting themselves and others in danger by drinking & driving, there’s not much else that can be done.