TOUGHER DRUGGED DRIVING LAWS URGED

Family Mourns Boy Killed In Crash As Study Advocates Changes

A call for Wisconsin and other states to beef up their laws to allow for
more harsh prosecution of drugged drivers hit home Thursday as a Glendale
couple grieved for their 10-year-old son, killed when the family car was
read-ended by a suspected drug-impaired driver in Illinois.

Asad Ali's family had pulled over about 8 p.m. Wednesday on the Tri-State
Tollway in Deerfield because the boy was sick, said Master Sgt. Emmit
Clifton of the Illinois State Police Department.

The boy's parents, Mohammad and Samina Ali, were standing outside their
1994 Mercedes-Benz, and Asad was leaning out of an open car door vomiting,
when they were struck from behind by a 1987 Plymouth Reliant.

The boy was later pronounced dead at an area hospital.

A 40-year-old man, the Reliant driver, was still hospitalized Thursday.

Clifton said cocaine was just one of the illegal substances found in the
Zion, Ill., man's blood.

The man could face several charges, including reckless homicide, Clifton said.

News of the boy's death came on the same day a national organization said
Wisconsin and most states have laws that are woefully inadequate in
prosecuting drugged drivers. The groups said the state should pass
legislation that would bar people from driving with any amount of illicit
drugs in their system.

About 9 million Americans have driven within two hours of using marijuana
or cocaine, according to a study by The Walsh Group and the American Bar
Association that was released Thursday.

But only eight states - not including Wisconsin - have zero-tolerance laws
when it comes to drugged driving.

That could change.

Drugged driving bill

State Rep. Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin) is drafting a bill that he says
would beef up Wisconsin's laws and allow prosecutors to deal more harshly
with those who drive while on drugs, much like the law now allows for
drunken drivers.

Dubbed the "Baby Luke" bill in memory of the newborn son a Waukesha woman
lost when a cocaine-addled driver plowed into her car, Gundrum's bill would
shift the burden from the prosecution to the defense that illegal drugs in
a driver's system did not cause impairment.

Gundrum said he was surprised to learn recently that there is a big
discrepancy in the way prosecutors are able to charge drugged drivers,
compared with drunken drivers, in fatal crashes.

Lawmakers have made homicide by drunken driving a felony carrying up to 40
years in prison upon conviction. But drugged driving fatal crashes often
end up charged as homicide by negligent driving, which has a maximum
two-year prison term.

That's because prosecutors and toxicologists have no scientific standard to
prove how much marijuana, cocaine or other illegal drug causes a driver to
become impaired.

For adult drunken drivers, all a prosecutor has to show is that their
blood-alcohol level exceeded the state's 0.10 limit.

But experts say that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to set such
levels for other drugs because they affect people differently. Only Nevada
has set such standards.

"The conclusion of the scientific community is that it's virtually
impossible to set a level of a drug that would be indicative of
impairment," said Michael Walsh, lead author of the study.

"So that's why the states have basically taken the legal strategy of per se
laws," where it is illegal to have any amount of illicit drugs regardless
of impairment, Walsh said.

Prosecutors support change

Gundrum and two area prosecutors said that concept was long overdue in
Wisconsin.

"I've said before that I think it's ridiculous that we don't have that,"
Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher said. "Why in God's name
would we let someone drive a motor vehicle after ingesting any illegal drugs?"

Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann said he, too, supports
a per se law.

"Either to set a standard or to set an absolute prohibition - that if you
have any marijuana or cocaine or crack or heroin or Ecstasy, you cannot
drive," McCann said. "The penalties should be equivalent to drunk driving."

McCann and Gundrum cited the case of Michelle Logemann, a Waukesha woman
who was 30 weeks pregnant when Paul D. Wilson, who had ingested cocaine,
ran a red light and rear-ended Logemann's car Dec. 11 in Milwaukee.

Her son Luke was delivered prematurely, and Logemann said Thursday that he
was able to grasp the hands of her husband before dying in his arms 12
hours later.

McCann said that even though Wilson had enough cocaine in his system to
make forensic toxicologists believe he was impaired, they could not prove
it scientifically.

"No one would testify that it influenced his driving. Everyone believed it
did . . . but they couldn't give an opinion under a reasonable degree of
scientific certainty," he said.

So prosecutors offered Wilson a deal in which he pleaded no contest to
homicide by negligent use of a vehicle and was sentenced to the maximum
two-year prison term. He also must serve another 20 months for his reckless
driving causing injury conviction for Michelle Logemann's injuries.

But Logemann said that he should have faced the same 40-year maximum
penalty that convicted drunken drivers who cause deaths face.

"This guy got off with a slap. . . . That's just not right," she said.

"I don't know if it would curb the use of drugs," Logemann said of stiffer
penalties. "But it would provide better justice for victims."

Gundrum said his bill, which is still being researched, would target only
drivers involved in crashes, not those stopped for erratic driving.