BENTON — If legislators want prosecutors to get tough on drunk drivers, they are going to have to start being a bit more careful when making and amending driving while intoxicated laws.
On March 4, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that driving while intoxicated convictions in a municipal court with a suspended imposition of sentence can not counted when upgrading a DWI charge to a felony.
Scott County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Boyd explained that according to section 577.023 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, if someone facing a DWI charge has a prior alcohol-related conviction within the last five years, they can be charged as a prior offender with a class 1 misdemeanor. If they have three alcohol-related convictions within a lifetime, they can be charged as a persistent offender with a class D felony; those with four convictions can be charged as an aggravated offender with a class C felony; and five or more convictions means they can face class B felony charges as a chronic defender.
Due to ambiguous language in the statutes, however, the high court ruled that “we can no longer use a prior SIS on a municipal DWI conviction for enhancement purposes,” Boyd said.
While this ruling allows many repeat drunken drivers to avoid felony charges and may even result in some who were convicted with enhanced charges getting out of prison, Boyd said what has been making his job difficult when prosecuting DWIs is coming up with evidence of prior convictions.
The roots of Boyd’s difficulty are in previous legislation that was supposed to enable prosecutors to go back a lifetime when considering prior convictions instead of 10 years.
“The problem is, the legislature did not consider the record keeping requirements for proving prior misdemeanor and municipal convictions,” Boyd said.
He explained municipalities are only required to keep records in which prosecutors would find these prior convictions for 12 years.
“Anything past (12 years ago) we’re having trouble getting our hands on,” Boyd said. “Sometimes you’ll find them; sometimes you won’t.”
For example, Boyd said he recently recently had case in which he knew the individual had a total of five DWIs from 1962 to the mid ’80s so the defendant was definitely a candidate for an extended sentence with felony charges, “but he hadn’t had anything since 1986.”
And Boyd isn’t the only one who remembers the prior convictions.
“Individuals sometimes get upset,” he said, when the more serious charges are not applied.
“The problem is proof,” Boyd said. “It is difficulty prosecuting a case if you can’t prove it. You have to prove your priors to the court.”
Boyd said he believes legislators have “good intentions” when tweaking DWI laws. However, “if they are going to make these changes, they need to do it thoroughly,” he said.
