SENATE APPROVES EASIER PROSECUTION OF DRUG-IMPAIRED DRIVERS

No matter how you crack the egg, your brain on drugs is not a pretty sight.

It's also ugly when those taking illegal drugs are behind the wheel of a
car, causing death and mayhem not unlike what happens when someone drives
while drunk.

That scenario motivated the Utah Senate Tuesday to pass SB7, which makes it
a whole lot easier for prosecutors to charge anyone with illegal drugs in
their system with felony vehicular homicide should they kill another person
in a traffic accident.

And prosecutors do not even need to prove the driver was under the influence
of drugs, only that illegal drugs were in his or her system.

"It is not quite a zero tolerance policy, but it is the same philosophy,"
said Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Holladay.

But there are exceptions, and Walker said there will be some who are clearly
impaired by drugs who will get away with murder.

"It's just one more tool to get those with drugs in their system off the
roads," she said.

Walker points to one national study found that 18 percent of all traffic
fatalities are caused by drivers under the influence of drugs.

But Paul Boyden, director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors, said
such incidents are extremely rare in Utah, and when they happen they
generate considerable media attention.

The legislation, in partnership with existing misdemeanor laws, sends the
message "it is illegal to drive with any controlled substance in your
system," he said.

And prosecutors will have it easier to prove their cases in court because
they will not have to prove the driver was impaired, the standard for
driving under the influence with alcohol cases.

Utah law currently states that drivers are impaired when they have 0.08
percent alcohol in their blood stream. But there is no comparable scientific
test to determine a level of impairment for drugs.

The new legislation, if passed by the House, simply states that any amount
of illegal drugs in the system constitutes the legal parameters for vehicle
homicide when an accident results in death.

Boyden said the approach is not without its potential problems, and the
legislation has been tweaked to stand up in court.

One change, Boyden said, was to remove from prosecution the "metabolites,"
or the minute traces of illegal drugs that remain in the human body for
weeks after they are ingested. Instead, the bill addresses only the active
chemicals of illegal drugs that would suggest they were taken recently and
it can be proven in court what the drugs were.

Another is a defense for those who might have drugs in their system they did
not voluntarily take, like second-hand marijuana smoke.

The legislation requires prosecutors to prove the fatal accident was caused
by negligence, and the drugs have to be proven by scientific tests to be
among a catalog of illegal drugs called Schedule I and Schedule II drugs.

But could an over-zealous prosecutor use the law to charge someone with a
felony if they had traces of illegal drugs days or weeks old?

"Nothing can stop an over-zealous prosecutor," Boyden quipped.