Chronic Drunk Driver Will Spend Year In Jail

A 56-year-old Spokane man convicted last week of drunken driving - for the seventh time since 1980 - was sentenced Monday to a year in jail.

Harry Haight, one of Spokane County’s most chronic drunken drivers, received the maximum sentence state law allows.

District Court Judge Donna Wilson said Haight’s one-year sentence for the gross misdemeanor will start when he concludes an existing 335-day sentence.

Haight is in Spokane County Jail for violating the probation from his previous conviction, a 1994 guilty plea to vehicular homicide. In that accident, Haight was found guilty of driving while intoxicated in a crash that killed his passenger, John Reeves.

Despite Haight’s grim driving history, prosecutors had no punishment for drunken driving longer than a year.

“Unfortunately, we have no felony drunk driving charge,” Deputy Prosecutor Michael Vaughn said.

Haight was arrested for drunken driving last Aug. 17 in the Spokane Valley. Evidence introduced in last week’s District Court trial showed Haight had a blood alcohol level of more than .15. The state legal limit is .10.

Early last year, Haight regained his driver’s license after serving a prison term for the vehicular homicide conviction.

The new conviction means he loses that license and cannot ask for reinstatement for at least a year. Several state legislators are considering adding tougher measures that would deny habitual offenders from ever regaining driver’s licenses.

, DataTimes