DWI justice is doled out usually on weekday nights, often in tiny courtrooms, in city halls across the region. There's one common result: Come with a DWI charge. Leave without a DWI conviction.

From July 2007 through June 2008, the most recent data available, a newspaper analysis found most area courts convicted 15 percent or less. Five courts — Clayton, Crestwood, Valley Park, Moscow Mills and Moline Acres — convicted nobody of DWI.

Several area judges and prosecutors said that was by design. Most said they had no problem giving a free pass to first-time offenders, and they believe only first-time offenders are prosecuted in their courts.

But the newspaper found case after case of prior offenders' being sent to a municipal court.

Regardless, the common plea deal is a suspended imposition of sentence (SIS). It means no conviction for the defendant if two years of probation is successfully completed.

Charles Billings, a judge in Fenton, Overland and Des Peres, said most courts believed they were administering real punishment and leaving enough of a paper trail that the SIS would count as a prior offense, as the law allows.

Even with an SIS, he said, the driver would have a record with the Department of Revenue. "Even if they got an SIS, you'd still have (a record with) DOR."

But although the department usually gets a notice of an SIS, it keeps track of only convictions — a problem for police checking someone's driving record to see past DWIs.

The other deal often offered by courts is convicting suspected drunken drivers of careless and imprudent driving or improper lane usage. The Department of Revenue records those charges in its conviction database, although it can take more digging to see if the convictions came from a DWI arrest, or just bad driving.

And those lesser charges are not serious enough for the state to suspend someone's license. Nor can nonalcohol charges count as a prior offense if the person is caught driving drunk again. So a repeat offender must be treated like a first-timer. Sometimes, courts do both deals, granting an SIS on a DWI while convicting someone of careless driving or improper lane usage. Judges defend the deals because they often come with a fine of up to $500 for each charge.

"They all take a careless and imprudent charge, and several points on their license, along with companion (charge) they're paying fines on," said O'Fallon, Mo., Judge Robert Wohler. "It's not like they're walking away without consequences."

Some courts are so enamored with the deals that they include them in their own calculations of conviction rates. The area's highest volume municipal court, run by St. Louis city, had DWI convictions on 12 percent of its DWI cases. But the court's administrative judge, Margaret Walsh, says an additional 60 percent of DWI defendants pleaded guilty and "got points on their licenses, substantial fines, and were required to attend the state-mandated evaluation and treatment program."

In her eyes, the city's conviction rate is more like 75 percent — even if most of the defendants aren't actually convicted of DWI.