NORMA MONSIVAIS

  Four felonies Avoided

In her seven DWI arrests, Monsivais has driven the wrong way down an interstate, parked on a bridge with her doors open, and led police on a five-mile slow-speed chase.

One thing she hasn't done: faced a felony charge.

A review of her record shows she first qualified for a felony in June 2007.

That's when a St. Louis County police officer stopped Monsivais, a nurse, for weaving along I-55. She had three prior DWI arrests; two of those cases had resulted in convictions.

Still, the officer sent the case to the county's municipal court.

The same thing happened when Maryland Heights police arrested her for DWI No. 5 in January 2008, and when Kirkwood police arrested her for DWI No. 6 three weeks later.

Her sixth DWI arrest came after she led police on a chase from Kirkwood to Des Peres, driving between 15 and 50 mph on I-44 and I-270. She stopped only after three patrol cars boxed her in.

A Kirkwood Municipal Court clerk said its case was eventually sent to county prosecutors for a felony charge. County prosecutors said they never got the request.

County prosecutors said they did get a request to handle Monsivais' seventh DWI arrest - when St. Louis County police found her in December in a stopped car on the wrong side of the road.

By then, according to Monsivais' driving record, she had racked up a third DWI conviction. That's one more than required for a felony.

But county prosecutors said they found only two priors in their computer search, and prosecutors said one of the cases wasn't usable because the records didn't contain a special form indicating a guilty plea.

A review of records shows that court did send county prosecutors a computer printout confirming she had pleaded guilty, but not a special plea form.

So for her seventh arrest, she faces a misdemeanor. The case is pending.

She could not be located for comment.

 

NEWTON KEENE

Two free passes

On a late-night traffic stop beside Dunn Road, Newton Keene left little doubt to an officer about his sobriety.

Keene readily admitted in that 2006 stop that he was "too drunk" to pass tests.

He would know. By then Keene had been convicted four times for driving drunk - the last one sending him to prison for 120 days.

Keene could have been sent back to prison for much longer but for one key mistake. The Hazelwood officer never asked prosecutors to file a felony charge.

Keene didn't stop driving drunk.

A year later, a St. Louis County police officer stopped Keene driving the wrong way on Bellefontaine Road.

Again, Keene said he was too drunk to do testing - explaining that he was "just a big lump of stupid."

This officer, too, failed to ask prosecutors to file a felony charge. He left the department before doing it, and nobody caught the error.

Keene did get charged with a felony, in Madison County this year after police said he drove the wrong way down I-255 and rammed a subcompact car driven by Tawanda Jackson. She was heading to St. Louis for her grandmother's funeral.

Killed were Jackson, her friend Jon Moss and her 9-year-old son, Arnold. Only daughter Takia, 11, survived.

Jackson's sister now helps raise Takia, and she's angry that so many repeat offenders avoid felony charges.

"What would it take, another family to lose somebody before they say, 'OK, enough is enough?'"

 

JOHN CORNER

Fast driving, slow charging

110 mph.

That's how fast police clocked Corner's car on Highway 40 (Interstate 64) just west of I-270.

Police stopped him, and his blood-alcohol level tested at 0.167 percent - more than twice the legal limit - for his third DWI.

The 2005 arrest came two months after his second DWI guilty plea, and it qualified him for a felony charge.

Prosecutors did charge him with a felony, but it was 18 months later.

After five more DWI arrests.

It's still unclear why it took so long.

Police quickly submitted the ticket, and prosecutors charged him with a misdemeanor as a temporary measure while they gathered his prior DWI records.

Then the months passed. Along the way, Corner kept skipping court, so prosecutors concede the case may have moved to the back burner.

Ten months after the 110-mph stop, he was arrested for allegedly driving drunk at nearly the same spot - although this time at only 80 mph. That was arrest No. 4.

Four months later came DWI arrest No. 5; four months after that, No. 6. The arresting officers - from Ballwin and Maryland Heights - eventually asked county prosecutors to file felony charges.

The Maryland Heights municipal clerk said prosecutors rejected the case for a felony, so the city tried to go for a lower charge, but the case got lost in the shuffle.

Ballwin police said they were told in mid-January 2007 that their case would wait because Corner had "other cases pending." Over the next month, Corner was arrested twice more for DWI, in St. George and Ballwin.

In his most recent DWI - No. 8 - police said he swerved into oncoming traffic on Big Bend and nearly rammed a car head-on before an officer stopped him.

Six days later, in February 2007, court records show Corner faced his first felony DWI - for the 110 mph stop that happened in August 2005.

Prosecutors soon added two more felony charges, for arrests No. 5 and No. 8, and Corner pleaded guilty. He served 120 days in prison.

He did not respond to repeated requests for comment.