By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

Jason Garrison is just one of many.

In fact, there are at least 10 cases similar to Garrison’s that the local MADD chapter is tracking in Jasper, Newton and McDonald counties — cases involving a multiple DWI offender who has seriously injured or killed another person, only to get a subsequent or multiple additional DWIs.

“These DWI offenders are slipping through the cracks,” said Kerry Freeman, head of Jasper County’s chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “So what we try to do is keep really close tabs on them.”

MADD does that by having a dedicated court monitor who regularly checks court filings and alerts members to upcoming court cases. Lori Morgan, who serves as court monitor in Jasper County, said she believes between 40 to 50 percent of first-time DWI offenders will get a subsequent DWI.

“When we do the Victims Impact Panels, I run everybody’s name (who is registered to attend),” she said. “I would say it’s between 40 and 50 percent who are here more than once.”

MADD officials, judges and others say there are a number of loopholes that allow DWI offenders to “slip through the cracks,” as Freeman said, as well as a number of ways to close them and make it harder for convicted drunken drivers to get back behind the wheel.

Freeman said the biggest problem she has observed with Missouri’s court system is a lack of communication between various jurisdictions, which allows some previous violations to potentially go unnoticed by a judicial circuit.

“If you get a ticket in the city of Joplin, Jasper County doesn’t know anything about it,” Freeman said. “And if you get one in Newton County, Joplin doesn’t know about it.”

Interlocks

Frank Harris, a spokesman with MADD’s national office in Washington, D.C., said one place to begin in Missouri is the “look-back” period, since a previous DWI offense is not counted as a prior if it occurs more than five years before a subsequent offense.

“If I got a DWI in Missouri today, and I got one six years from now, it might count as my first conviction,” he said. “MADD believes if you get one today, and you get one 10 years from now, it should be on your record permanently.”

At the national level, MADD also has been advocating for the mandatory installation of ignition interlocks for first-time DWI offenders.

Harris said the devices require a driver to take a breathalyzer test before the vehicle will start. The device will also require the driver to take “rolling tests” — exhaling into the system while the car is running. If a driver’s blood-alcohol content rises above a certain level — typically .02 or .05 percent — the vehicle shuts off.

Missouri took a step in that direction with a new law that goes into effect Wednesday.

The law targets primarily repeat DWI offenders who are seeking to regain their licenses and it could require as many as 70,000 Missouri residents convicted of alcohol-related traffic offenses to install breath-monitoring devices on their vehicles if they want to legally drive after July 1. It also applies to anyone convicted of involuntary manslaughter while driving drunk.

In the past few years, about 20 states have passed laws mandating their use for first-time or repeat offenders, according to MADD.

Missouri’s law could have a particularly broad affect because it applies to people convicted of drunken driving as long as 10 years ago who are just now eligible to regain their licenses.

The Missouri Department of Revenue, which issues driver’s licenses, plans to send more than 70,000 letters to offenders in early July notifying them of the need to get ignition interlocks to legally drive again. The law requires them to be used for six months.

Clogged court

Jasper County Prosecutor Dean Dankelson said alcohol-related driving offenses represent a large portion of the court’s docket.

“There are probably not as many as we have of the drug-related cases, but I would say it would be a high percentage of what we do,” he said.

Dankelson said Missouri laws create a graduated punishment system for dealing with DWIs. A first offense is considered a class B misdemeanor, while each subsequent offense results in a more severe penalty. Four or more offenses and a person is considered a “chronic offender” — a class B felony.

A corresponding offense is excessive blood-alcohol content. Dankelson said the standard for such a charge is simply operating a motor vehicle with a BAC over the legal limit of .08, whereas a DWI offense must also meet certain criteria — speeding, swerving or erratic driving.

There were 164 DWI felony cases filed against multiple offenders in Jasper County in 2008 — those with two or more previous convictions — according to information from the Missouri Judiciary Criminal System. There were 337 misdemeanor cases filed against first-time offenders.

McDonald County reported 183 cases filed against first-time offenders in 2008 and 90 felony cases filed against repeat offenders. Newton County reported 187 first-time offenses and 70 cases filed against repeat offenders.

BAC vs. DWI

Judge Joseph Schoeberl is head of Jasper County’s Fourth Judicial Circuit in Carthage. His court is primarily responsible for the initial setting of alcohol-related driving offenses.

“There is a tremendous economic cost to a DWI, let alone the high risk of injury or death,” he said, referring to the first-time offender “Here’s what it’s going to cost you: $1,500 to $3,000 for an attorney on a misdemeanor. Approximately $1,000 in fines and court costs. Increased insurance premiums for high risk. And possibly loss of job.”

Schoeberl said the court typically offers a first-time offender a plea agreement that requires him or her to attend MADD’s Victims Impact Panel, and to undergo an alcohol screening through the Substance Abuse Traffic Offenders Program, or SATOP. That program requires the offender to submit to an alcohol screening, and provides a level of treatment based on the results of the test. Treatment can include a 10-hour course, weekend intervention classes, or up to 51 hours of a clinical intervention, typically done in an outpatient setting.

Schoeberl also said the BAC charge can be used as a legal way out in some cases to allow a driver to reapply for a license.

“There is a loophole, and it’s been there forever,” he said. “The only difference, and why the private attorneys want to plea bargain, is if you get two DWIs in five years, you get a five-year denial of your license. If you have a BAC and a DWI within five years, there’s no five-year denial of your license.”

DWI courts?

“There are two schools of thought,” Dankelson said. “One is all we can do is incarcerate them. At some point in time, people will get to the level where all we can do to keep society safe is incarcerate them. The other school of thought is to provide a more intensive treatment in the community for those types of offenders.”

Some jurisdictions, including the 31st Judicial Circuit in Springfield, also have begun treating alcohol-related driving offenders through a separate “DWI court.” The program is similar to drug courts, in that the offender is placed in a more strict monitoring program than a traditional probation.

Dankelson said both Jasper and Newton counties have a drug court system in place, primarily to deal with methamphetamine cases. No such court exists for alcohol offenses.

“We have discussed implementing DWI court but have not done so yet,” he said. “(Under the current system) there are times that require people to go through in-patient treatment as part of their probation. There are times where people have to go to AA meetings, or other types of treatment.

“I think that right now we have a good system in place for dealing with folks who get convicted of a DWI,” Dankelson said. “But I also think it’s my job, as it is everybody in the system’s job, to see if there’s a better way we can do things. And even if something is working, there may be a better way to do that in the future.”

Treatment

versus jail

Steve Deetz, director of the Substance Abuse Traffic Offenders Program (SATOP) said there is a place for treatment. SATOP typically serves about 30,000 people arrested in Missouri each year.

Deetz said offenders are typically given a choice of incarceration or deferring to a DWI court for roughly 18 months of intensive therapy, which can have positive results.

“For (repeat offenders), if you can get them into DWI court, I’d still be optimistic,” he said. “But if they can’t get through DWI court, I’d say the chances of them changing their behavior are probably pretty slim.

Harris said he believes DWI court is only “part of the solution.”

“Treatment is definitely an option but it should never be in lieu of jail time at any point,” Harris said. “Just because you have a problem with alcohol doesn’t give you a free pass for driving drunk.”

Schoeberl said he believes long-term incarceration may be the only answer for certain extreme cases.

“My feeling is that those people — if they put society to that risk on a repeated basis — then they need to be in prison,” he said. “If we can’t change your behavior, then we protect society by putting you in jail.”



Back of the pack

Frank Harris, a spokesman with MADD’s national office in Washington, D.C., said Missouri ranks 34th out of 51 states and the District of Columbia in the group’s most recent progress report on the campaign to end drunken driving. According to the report, 34 percent of Missouri’s traffic deaths involved drunken drivers. There were 338 drunken-driving deaths in 2007.

MADD’s report indicated this was a decrease of 12.4 percent.

Missouri fell well behind Kansas (seventh) with 114 deaths and Oklahoma (14th) with 219 deaths related to drunk driving.