Thread: Colo. advisers ,favor lighter penalties for illegal driving

Colo. advisers reject tougher DUI sentences, favor lighter penalties for illegal driving
By David Olinger

Posted: 12/12/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 12/12/2009 01:21:45 AM MST


LAKEWOOD — A divided state commission decided Friday not to recommend mandatory jail time for people repeatedly convicted of drunken driving in Colorado.

The commission's vote came after it had previously recommended lessening potential penalties for driving with suspended or revoked licenses — a change intended to create jail space in anticipation of a recommendation that drivers caught driving drunk for the second or third time go to jail.

"This is a banner day for traffic offenders," a frustrated Attorney General John Suthers declared to the room immediately after the vote.

The defeated proposal would have required drunken drivers to spend at least 30 days in jail on a second offense and at least 60 days in jail on a third offense. Work releases would have been permitted on second offenses but not third offenses.

Repeat offenders also would have faced longer probation periods and requirements to complete substance abuse classes.

Eight members of the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice supported the changes, and four others voted that they could live with them. But eight others voted no, and because commission rules require 75 percent acceptance among voting members, the recommendation for tougher DUI sentences failed.

The commission was created by Gov. Bill Ritter and the legislature two years ago to study criminal sentences and make recommendations to the governor, legislature and courts. Part of its goal is to provide a more "cost-effective" criminal justice system. Its recommendations are nonbinding.

Panel reverses course

A long and sometimes confusing procedural discussion preceded the DUI sentencing vote. Commission members had supported a similar proposal in October but then decided to bring it back and rework the language.

After Friday's vote, some commission members wondered aloud whether they had killed what they supported two months ago in addition to the sentencing proposal they had just turned down. They were told they did.

"I'm guessing it failed partly out of confusion," state public defender Douglas Wilson said. He said he voted no in part because he was tired of seeing the commission reconsider and change criminal justice policy recommendations it had already approved.

Penalties under attack

Other commission members said judges were concerned about the mandatory sentencing provisions, and the proposal's tougher probation requirements could prove costly, harsh and unmanageable.

"They're going to violate probation," said Regina Huerter, executive director of Denver's Crime Prevention and Control Commission. "We're going to see them coming back to jail time and time again."

David Kaplan, a criminal defense attorney, said he believes judges "should have an opportunity to fashion sentences based on individual circumstances."

For the past year, The Post has been examining the impact of drunken driving on Colorado and its residents.

The paper has found that nearly a third of those convicted in deadly drinking and driving crashes were incarcerated for two years or less; that since 2005, at least 30 percent of defendants in vehicular homicide-DUI cases had prior DUI cases; and that each year, roughly 10,000 drunken drivers are arrested in Colorado for driving drunk again.

This week, the U.S. Department of Transportation identified Colorado as one of seven states whose alcohol-related traffic deaths increased from 2007 to 2008.

Adams County District Attorney Don Quick, a supporter of mandatory jail on second and third drunken-driving convictions, told the commission "these repeat DUI offenders are the most dangerous guys on the road."

Under the current system, he said, some persistent drunken drivers have opted to just accept jail time and never change their behavior.

"They're just killing the numbers," he said. "They're going to jail and going out with no treatment."


http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13981420?source=rss

They "Screwed the pooch" on this one.