WHY PROSECUTORS CARE ABOUT
DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE CASES
by Joanne E. Michaels and Mark M. Neil.
Joanne Michaels
is the Director of the of the National District Attorneys Association
in Alexandria, Virginia. The NTLC provides technical
support and legal research to prosecutors and law enforcement across the
country. Prior to this position, she was a Senior Assistant District Attorney
for the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office in Syracuse, New York.
She was the Bureau Chief of the DWI Unit from April 2000 - August 2006. The DWI
Bureau is responsible for the prosecution of all alcohol - related crimes and
all vehicular fatalities. Ms. Michaels was previously a member of both the
Special Victims and Violent Felony Bureaus within the Onondaga County District
Attorney’s Office.
Ms.
Michaels is a graduate of Salem State College and
Vermont Law School. She was the
President of the Onondaga County Bar Association in 2003. Ms. Michaels teaches
at continuing legal education seminars across the country on all issues
pertaining to impaired driving and vehicular crimes prosecutions. In addition,
she lectures to law enforcement agencies and other traffic safety personnel on
all issues pertaining to impaired driving and highway safety issues. She is one
of the authors of the New York Prosecutors Training Institute’s Vehicular
Homicide Manual for Prosecutors.
Mark Neil is the Senior Attorney for the National Traffic Law Center (NTLC), a program of the National District Attorneys Association. The NTLC benefits prosecutors and their traffic safety partners by increasing the awareness of highway safety issues through the compilation, creation and distribution of legal and technical information and by providing training and reference services. In this position Mr. Neil is responsible for conducting or participating in training conferences and seminars around the country, providing technical assistance to prosecutors and law enforcement officers, and representing prosecutors at national meetings. Prior to coming to the National Traffic Law Center, he was the Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor for the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Institute, a position he held from March 2004 until August 2007. A graduate of Vanderbilt University and the West Virginia University College of Law, he was a practicing attorney in West Virginia for over 24 years, 17 of which were as an Assistant Prosecutor in Raleigh and Fayette Counties. Mr. Neil handled felony and misdemeanor cases of all types at both the Circuit Court and Magistrate Court levels.
Why should prosecutors care about driving under the influence cases? Aren’t we just picking on social drinkers who haven’t hurt anyone? After all, they’re just misdemeanors, they take a lot of time away from other cases and they are a royal pain to handle. However, always remember they are incredibly important and are some of the most technically difficult cases to prosecute.
So, why should prosecutors care about driving under the influence cases?
Well, consider the fact that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in the United States for people between the ages of 4 and 34, the second leading cause of death for toddlers ages 1 to 3, and the third leading cause of death for adults ages 35 – 44. They are the eighth leading cause of death of all ages, currently killing over 42,000 people each year.
In addition, motor vehicle crashes injury more than 2.6 million people, all at a cost of over $230 billion.
Consider that nationally 41% of the total motor vehicle fatalities were alcohol-related in 2006; that’s 17,602 people.
Are national figures or statistics just too remote? Consider these figures as applied to a specific state, for example, West Virginia. Those figures represent the entire town populations of Martinsburg, Clarksburg or Beckley and all of the counties of Barbour, Braxton, Morgan or Taylor killed every year in alcohol related crashes.
Think of it in terms of your family and neighbors. 410 West Virginians were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2006, 161 of them in alcohol-related crashes. 133 of those fatalities involved blood alcohol levels of .08 or higher. Put another way, that’s more than one West Virginian killed every day on our highways, more than one every 3 days because of impaired drivers.
The WV Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority reports that bookings for alcohol related charges for calendar year 2006 totaled 48,285 (this number may include multiple bookings of the same person). That added up to 23.6% of the total bookings into the regional jails. Of those numbers, 7080 were for 1st Offense DUI. 1266 were for 2nd Offense DUI while 561 were for 3rd Offense DUI. There were 207 bookings for DUI with Injury and 37 for DUI with Death. In sum, all but 23 of the alcohol-related bookings dealt with driving offenses.
So now you know why prosecutors care about impaired driving cases.
Why shouldn't you?