November 10, 2006, 06:06
JBDeaths put focus on repeat DWIs Multiple offenders
Alexandra M. Biesada; Taylor Johnson
Drunken drivers have stolen lives from three generations of Donald
Hensley's family.
In 1963, Hensley's maternal grandmother was killed in Houston County by
a man driving drunk. The man also died in the accident.
In February, the Round Rock man's 32-year-old sister-in-law, Margaret
Elizabeth Hensley, and her 2-year-old son, Michael, were killed near
Pflugerville by an intoxicated San Antonio man who had a prior conviction
for driving while intoxicated.
Hensley said his brother, sister-in-law and their son were on their way
to Temple the night of the fatal accident for a weekend of cattle roping.
"They were pulling a trailer with two horses that were also killed," he
said. His brother, Marvin, survived the accident.
"The fact that 31 years later I still have to deal with the same problem
shows that we haven't done enough," said Hensley, who attended the trial of
Robert Elizondo Lopez, 32, who was charged with DWI in the February
accident.
Although deaths from drunken-driving accidents have dropped by almost
one-third over the past 12 years thanks to raised awareness of the problem,
drivers with multiple DWI convictions still are disproportionately likely
to be involved in fatal crashes, said James C. Fell, chief of the National
Highway Transportation Safety Administration's Office of Alcohol and State
Programs.
Nationwide, about 3 percent of all licensed drivers have had a DWI
arrest within the past three years. But close to 12 percent of intoxicated
drivers involved in fatal crashes have had at least one DWI conviction
within the three years before their crash, Fell said.
In Texas, 125,941 of the 352,372 drivers arrested for DWI from 1987 to
1990, or 36 percent, were repeat offenders, according to the safety
administration.
In August, Lopez pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was
sentenced to 14 years in prison. "He must serve seven years before he is
eligible for parole," Hensley said.
"In my opinion, that's no justice at all. There were tons of reasons
this guy shouldn't have been driving at all," Hensley said, citing Lopez's
prior DWI conviction and lack of a valid driver's license.
In a more recent case, Gregory E. Cook, who authorities say was drunk
when he drove into a sewage pond near Wimberley on Sept. 25, killed himself
and his eight- and 10-year-old daughters in the accident.
Cook apparently circumvented a breath-analyzing device, called an
ignition interlock, installed in his car by having one of his daughters
breathe into it to start the car, investigators have said.
Cook, who had three DWI convictions, had been sentenced to probation in
the summer as a first offender and was able to stay on probation despite
obvious violations within a month of his sentence.
Shirley Draper, the girls' mother, has been indicted on two counts of
injury to a child and two counts of child endangerment for allowing the
girls to go with Cook, Draper's ex-husband.
The crash in Wimberley was the tragic consequence of treating repeat
DWI offenders as if they are first-time offenders, said Bill Lewis, public
policy liaison for the Texas chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
"As a third-time offender, Cook should have had his license suspended
and should have been in jail," Lewis said. "I'd like to see a way to
permanently revoke a person's driver's license."
In November, a Dallas man with seven previous felony drunken-driving
convictions was sentenced to life in prison for an accident in which Fort
Worth police officer Alan Chick was killed.
In arguing for a life sentence for the man, Eugene Standerford,
prosecutors told jurors it was shameful that he was free to be drunk and
driving on Dec. 22, 1993, when he struck and killed Chick, who had stopped
to help a stranded motorist.
Fell said the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has
been examining sanctions to discourage the relatively small number of repeat
offenders, who are involved in more than their share of fatal
drunken-driving accidents.
They include:
o Putting a zebra-stripe tag on the license plate of a car whose driver's
license has been suspended. Police in Portland, Ore., are using the stripe
as probable cause to stop a vehicle if it is sighted on the road.
o Ohio, California and other states are experimenting with laws to impound
the vehicles of drunken drivers. "It's left to the judge's discretion," Fell
said. "They usually don't do it unless the offender is incorrigible and jail
isn't the answer."
o Another option, which failed in the Wimberley case, is the ignition
interlock.
o In Texas, an administrative license revocation law is set to take effect
Jan. 1. It should aid in the fight against drunken driving, said B.J.
Lashley-Hassell, victim services coordinator for the MADD Heart of Texas
Chapter.
Currently, blood alcohol test results are used only for criminal DWI
proceedings. When the license revocation law goes into effect, test results
also will be used to determine whether a driver's license should be revoked
as an administrative action.
A driver who fails or refuses a blood alcohol test will receive a notice
of license suspension on the spot from the arresting officer. Drivers will
have 15 days to request a hearing before an administrative law judge to
contest the suspension.
(from graph)
DWI offenders with licenses
Number of drivers with repeat DWI offenses who still have Texas driver's
licenses.
Number of DWI offenses Number of drivers with Texas license
---------------------- ------------------------------------
1 524,722
2 131,902
3 41,489
4 14,649
5 5,761
6 2,405
7 1,111
8 499
9 321
10 140
11 96
12 41
13 35
14 19
15 9
16 5
17 3
18 0
19 2
20 1
21 0
22 1
23 1
24 0
25 0
Source: MADD, Texas chapter