POLICE OFFICER CALLS NEW DRUNK-DRIVING LAW 'UNFORGIVING'

To many, the longstanding admonition - "Don't Drink and Drive" - has really
meant "Don't Get Drunk and Drive."

It's time to rethink that interpretation.

Getting legally drunk - and into serious legal trouble - will get easier
Jan. 1, when tough new drinking-and-driving laws go into effect in
Washington state.

Not only will the legal limit for drivers' blood-alcohol level drop from
0.10 to 0.08 percent, but the penalties for violators also will increase.

"The average person probably doesn't have a clue of the problems that await
them if they get a DUI (driving-under-the-influence conviction)," said Jon
Scott Fox, a Bellevue defense lawyer specializing in those cases.

In Seattle, Sgt. Jake Magan, head of the Police Department's DUI squad,
calls the new set of laws "unforgiving. . . . It's going to give people a
legal hangover that will take them years to get over."

A 180-pound man might reach a 0.08 percent level with four drinks (or two
"doubles") in an hour, while a 120-pound woman could hit the limit with two
drinks, according to the Liquor Control Board.

The 13 DUI laws passed by the Legislature this year also increase the use
of jail time, home detention, driver's-license suspensions and devices
designed to prevent a car from starting if the driver has been drinking.

Penalties also will be harder to avoid under the new laws and will stay on
a person's record longer.

Even some prosecutors were surprised by the severity of some of the new laws.

Jeffrey Jahns, Kitsap County deputy prosecutor, said increasing jail time
for drunken drivers - second offenders get at least 30 days - may force
authorities in some areas to let felons out to make room in the jails.

"Some of these ideas are quite good. Some are going to be in litigation for
years," Jahns said.

The complexity of the new laws, and what they'll mean in practice, is the
subject of a three-day conference this week sponsored by the Washington
Traffic Safety Commission.

Although this is the 11th annual conference, the barrage of new laws is
expected to draw a record turnout of about 400 professionals from various
fields dealing with the issue, said John Moffat, commission director.

Magan, Jahns and Fox - cop, prosecutor and defense attorney - are among the
scheduled speakers. Though each brings a different perspective, they agree
that any motorist inclined to get behind the wheel after drinking should
understand the risks. Chief among them: the possibility of killing
yourself, your loved ones or an innocent stranger.

Last year in Washington, 324 people died in wrecks involving alcohol, and
1,000 more were injured. Statewide, more than 33,800 DUI arrests were made,
3,610 of them in King County.

A list of changes in the law

Washington became the 16th state to adopt the 0.08 percent limit when Gov.
Gary Locke signed it into law last spring. Nearly 200 highway signs are
already in place announcing the upcoming change.

Other changes taking effect Jan. 1 will:

- -- Order the Licensing Department to suspend for 90 days the driver's
license of anyone arrested for drunken driving. This administrative action
can be taken regardless of whether the driver is convicted on a criminal
DUI charge. A driver is entitled to a hearing to contest the suspension,
but the state's standard of proof in that process is lower than at a
criminal trial.

- -- Require breath-triggered ignition locks for at least a year for drivers
convicted of DUI who had alcohol levels above 0.15 percent. Offenders would
rent the devices for about $60 a month, plus pay a $75 installation charge.

- -- Require electronic home monitoring - a form of house arrest - for 90 to
150 days for repeat DUI offenders after release from jail.

- -- Restrict to once in a lifetime the chance for the driver to avoid DUI
prosecution by entering an alcohol-treatment program and complying with all
requirements. Drunken drivers now can do this every five years.

- -- Require judges and prosecutors to consider drunken-driving convictions
in the past seven years - rather than the present five - in prosecution and
sentencing. In addition, past incidents that were originally charged as
DUIs but reduced to a lower crime, such as negligent driving, would count
as DUI offenses when a repeat offender is sentenced.

Several other provisions took effect last June, including stiffer sentences
when drunken drivers have passengers and impounding the cars of people
driving with suspended licenses.

Although the blood-alcohol limit gets much public attention, it doesn't
take a high reading to be convicted of a DUI. Drivers with a lower alcohol
level can be convicted if a police officer has observed erratic driving.

In response to public pressure, the Legislature has been strengthening DUI
laws annually and approaching the problem from a variety of angles.

The result is a complex set of laws interrelating in ways many
professionals are still learning about. Sentencing provisions, for example,
are drawn from pages of grids with dozens of conditions, depending on the
nature of the violation, the person's history and other circumstances.

Jahns said prosecuting a DUI, a misdemeanor, has become more complicated
than trying many violent felonies.

"We have one of the toughest DUI laws in the country," he said.
"Unfortunately, it's excessively hard to understand."

People arrested for DUI have to make important decisions at a time their
decision-making abilities may be at their worst, notes Fox.

The Breathalyzer test presents one of those choices. A breath test over the
legal limit gives a prosecutor a major tool toward conviction. But refusing
to take the test now carries such severe and automatic penalties, including
a one-year license suspension, that it's almost always better, particularly
for a first offender, to take the test, Fox said.

Fox said questions about the precision of the breath-testing equipment
still persist, raising possible grounds for a defense.

Anyone reluctant to call for a cab ride home because of the expense might
want to weigh that $35 fare against this: Fox calculates that the fines,
legal fees, assessments, penalties, treatment, increased insurance,
probation expenses, ignition devices and home detention could, depending on
the specifics of the case, add up to more than $14,000 for a single
conviction.

And that doesn't include the economic loss from time away from work or, in
some cases, the loss of a job, or costs that could come from a civil
lawsuit if a driver causes an accident.

Flirting with legal levels

On the streets of Seattle, particularly as bar-closing time approaches,
Magan and his six officers have seen people flirt with the legal levels of
intoxication, often with unhappy results.

Someone might intend to have just two or three drinks, Magan said, but
those drinks can reduce inhibitions and erode common sense, making the
person less likely to refuse another drink.

"What we see all the time are people who never intended to go out and drive
drunk," he said. Magan said an intoxicated driver is the worst possible
judge of who should be driving.

The Legislature's bipartisan campaign against drunken drivers this year was
in part a reaction to the death last year of 38-year-old Mary Johnsen of
Issaquah.

Johnsen was walking with her husband on the Sammamish Plateau when she was
struck by a minivan driven by Susan West, 39, who had a blood-alcohol level
of 0.34 percent. West, who had four previous drunken-driving arrests, was
sentenced to nine years in prison.

In another indication of the get-tough attitude toward drunken drivers,
especially chronic ones, a King County judge last week ordered a 20-year
prison term for a man who caused his second fatal accident. Roger Souther
had a 0.29 blood-alcohol reading in March after he struck and killed
motorcyclist Matthew Chumley.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has pressed for tough penalties for
offenders. The group's national president, Karolyn Nunnallee, will speak at
this week's conference. Her 10-year-old daughter was one of 27 people
killed in a 1988 Kentucky bus crash that has been called the worst
drunken-driving accident in U.S. history.

The tragic stories of drunken-driving victims make it difficult to oppose
legislation billed as attacking drunken drivers, said Anthony Anton,
lobbyist for the Washington Restaurant Association.

"Everyone wants dangerous drivers off the roads," he said. But Anton said
restaurant owners opposed lowering the legal threshold to 0.08 percent on
the grounds that most accidents are caused by drivers with much higher
readings.

West's alcohol level, for example, was more than three times the legal
limit at the time she struck Johnsen.

In response, the Traffic Safety Commission says that in 1996, Washington
drivers with blood-alcohol readings of 0.06 percent to 0.09 percent - all
under the legal limit - were involved in accidents that killed 33 people.

Jack Broom's phone message number is 206-464-2222. His e-mail address is:
jbroom@seattletimes.com

Checked-by: Pat Dolan