Multiple DUI offenses common

SEATTLE – Despite toughened laws against driving under the influence, more than 30,000 Washington motorists have racked up multiple DUI offenses since 2000, the Seattle Times reported Monday.

Nearly 5,000 drivers have had three or more drunken-driving cases filed against them in the last six years, and 159 have had at least five, the newspaper said, citing an analysis of statewide court records.

The issue has come to the forefront after two recent high-profile drunken-driving cases.

Susan L. West, 48, who served six years for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk, was sentenced last week to one year in jail for her fifth DUI offense.

And last month, police say a woman with an outstanding DUI charge plowed her SUV through a red light at 80 mph and killed a rookie Seattle police officer. Investigators say Mary Jane Rivas, 31, had cocaine in her system at the time of the crash.

Based on interviews with experts and its analysis of court records, the Times said most people charged with DUI are not convicted of that offense.

Of the 220,640 people with DUI offenses since 2000, only 43 percent ended up with DUI convictions; 27 percent were convicted of reduced charges such as reckless driving, the paper said.

In about 12 percent of the cases, sentences were deferred, giving offenders the chance to meet certain conditions such as successfully completing treatment. About 17 percent of the charges were dismissed.

The number of DUI charges in Washington has remained relatively steady over the past decade, according to data from the state Administrative Office of the Courts.

The number of DUI deaths, however, has fallen in recent years, except for a spike last year to 268, which is a preliminary figure, said Lowell Porter, director of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

The state has steadily toughened DUI laws in the years since Susan West’s repeat offenses sparked public outrage.

West had at least four previous DUI arrests and 20 other traffic offenses when she hit and killed Mary Johnsen, a 38-year-old mother walking with her husband on the Sammamish Plateau. West was convicted of vehicular homicide in 1997.

Since then, the state’s blood-alcohol limit for drunken driving has been lowered to 0.08 from 0.10. Authorities have also been given the power to impound vehicles and require DUI offenders to install devices on their cars that would shut down the ignition if they tried to drive after they had been drinking.

The penalty for a single DUI conviction in seven years is a 90-day license suspension, up to one year in jail or 15 days in electronic home detention, a fine of up to $5,000, plus other penalties such as a probationary license.

Additional DUI convictions allow for stiffer penalties. A law that takes effect in July 2007 makes a fifth DUI conviction in 10 years punishable by a year and three months to five years in prison.

Washington’s DUI penalties are in line with those of the rest of the nation, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry research organization.

One problem with the current system: There are separate files for arrests and other files for blood-alcohol readings, said Phil Salzberg, research director for the state Traffic Safety Commission.

Salzberg and others have pushed for the creation of a unified database of DUI offenses that would help the criminal-justice system keep track of offenders.

Officials say the state has not implemented such a system largely because of the cost and complexity of setting one up.

The state is, however, developing a system called eTRIP, which will use bar-code readers and move away from paper tickets. The statewide system could provide State Patrol troopers with quicker, more complete access to DUI information. It is expected to be in place by 2008.

A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-sponsored review of Washington’s handling of DUI cases two years ago recommended, among other things, that the state establish a system of DUI courts “as a way of getting some consistency around the state.”

The state’s first DUI court is expected to start in Spokane this year or next.