JEFFERSON CITY — Persistent drunken drivers would have their cars seized and it would be a crime to refuse to take a DWI breath test if panelists assembled by the governor have their way.

Those were two sanctions that gained traction Wednesday during a DWI summit of 34 police, prosecutors and government officials from across the state. The panel met at the request of Gov. Jay Nixon, who vowed changes to the state's DWI law in response to a Post-Dispatch investigation into ways area police, prosecutors and judges fail to punish drunken drivers.

Citing the newspaper's investigation, Nixon told the panel the status quo was "simply not acceptable" and that the system was letting too many chronic drunken drivers injure and kill innocent people.

"Thinking about the lives we can save should be our guiding principle," he said.

The governor instructed Cabinet members to write a new law based on panelists' suggestions, and find sponsors in the House and Senate. Todd Scott, chief of staff for Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Lee's Summit, said his boss hopes to prefile a bill before the legislative session begins early next year.

A few prosecutors, including St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch, argued against changes that would carry unintended consequences or create loopholes that lawyers could exploit.

One issue most panel members agreed on was the need to establish an easier way for police and courts to track prior offenses, so that repeat offenders are not treated as first-timers and escape more serious penalties.

Missouri has a so-called three-strikes law, meaning any arrest after two prior convictions is supposed to be treated as a felony. But the newspaper found that about one-third of DWI offenders who qualified for felonies were charged with misdemeanors or not at all. The problem was especially severe in St. Louis County, where it happened about half the time.

Col. James Keathley, superintendent of the Missouri Highway Patrol, advocated expanding the patrol's voluntary DWI tracking system. That would make it easier for an officer to immediately tell when a DWI suspect is facing a felony charge.

If the law changed, the tracking system also would make it easier for police to seize the car and sell it, he said.

State law currently allows cities with 100,000 or more people to create ordinances that would allow taking a felony DWI suspect's car.

Andrea Spillars, deputy director of the Department of Public Safety, who is likely to have a major role in crafting a new law, liked the idea. Since license suspensions don't seem to keep hard-core drunks off the road, perhaps the threat of losing their car would, she said.

Many on the panel derided the lack of teeth to what is supposed to be one of the toughest sanctions against drunken driving in Missouri law — a one-year suspension of license for refusing the blood alcohol test. The Post-Dispatch found that since 2000, area prosecutors have let more than 10,000 drivers keep their licenses despite their refusal to take breath tests.

Drivers who refuse the test can appeal directly to civil court, where a judge automatically allows the person to continue driving until the appeal is heard.

The newspaper found that in about half the cases in a recent 12-month period, prosecutors in the St. Louis area gave up on those license appeals as part of a plea bargain.

Five states — Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island and Vermont — eliminate the appeal process by making it a crime to refuse the breath test, according to the Century Council, an anti-DWI advocacy group.

Ken Askren, an attorney in Boone County, suggested ending the practice of allowing drunken drivers to avoid a DWI conviction on their record in return for admitting to the charge and getting probation. But McCulloch and other prosecutors said the maneuver, known as a suspended imposition of sentence, has merit.

"It's a mechanism for us to assess the extent of the drinking problem that the person has," McCulloch said.

He also defended the practice of having drunken driving cases go to municipal courts, where the Post-Dispatch investigation found that just one of seven area DWI cases ended in DWI convictions. McCulloch said those cases should count as priors.

He did note that the court systems in St. Louis County's 91 municipalities ranged in quality.

"If they can't put an effective court in place, or police department in place, then they shouldn't exist," he said.