IMPAIRMENT STATUTE USELESS, ATTORNEY SAYS

An attorney representing the woman charged in a March accident that killed
six teen-agers told a judge Wednesday that his client is accused of
breaking a law that should never have been enacted.

Defense attorney John Watkins appeared before the Legislature in May 1999
to oppose a law that prohibits people from driving with certain amounts of
specific drugs in their system.

He told legislators that the low drug thresholds included in the
legislation would result in DUI convictions for people who were not
impaired. Now defending Jessica Williams, Watkins on Wednesday urged
District Judge Mark Gibbons to find the law unconstitutional.

"If you can't show impairment, you can't prosecute someone for DUI," he
told the judge, who will issue his written decision next week.

Prosecutors Gary Booker and Bruce Nelson urged Gibbons to uphold the
decisions made by legislators who did their best to solve a pressing but
complex problem.

They said legislators were aware that drugged drivers were a growing menace
but that no way existed to correlate a degree of impairment to an amount of
a particular drug found in a person's system.

So legislators set minimum amounts for marijuana, cocaine and other illegal
drugs. A driver whose blood or urine exceeded these amounts would be
presumed to be driving impaired.

In prosecutions for driving while under the influence, this would have the
same effect as a finding that a driver's blood alcohol level exceeded 0.10
percent.

"We are asking this court to do exactly what the Legislature did. Look at
what is best for the citizens of Nevada. Look at what is best for safety on
the highway," Booker said.

Gibbons said he will issue a written decision in about a week.

Should the judge find the law unconstitutional, prosecutors said they still
would pursue driving under the influence charges against Williams, who had
marijuana and the drug Ecstasy in her system.

Instead of presenting evidence that her marijuana levels exceeded the
limits set forth in the law Watkins is challenging, prosecutors would try
to prove that she was impaired at the time of the accident.

Williams, 21, remains in the Clark County Detention Center on $5 million
bail. She is charged in a March 19 accident in which her minivan entered
the median of Interstate 15 near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, running into
six teens on a county work crew.

Killed were Anthony Smith, 14, Scott Garner Jr., 14, Alberto Puig, 16,
Maleyna Stoltzfus, 15, and Rebeccah Glicken, 15, and Jennifer Booth, 16.

Also, Watkins targeted the measure on more narrow grounds. For instance, he
said it is meaningless to prohibit a driver from having a certain amount of
marijuana in his blood. Such a prohibition more properly should address the
presence of THC, the active component in the plant.

"You don't have pieces of marijuana leaves floating around in your body,"
Watkins said.

Prosecutors replied that the law defined what was meant by marijuana and
that the use of the term was clear to all. "Everybody knows what marijuana
is," Booker said.