Missouri DWI Information & News Blog

Jefferson City, MO

Missouri's chief justice told lawmakers on Wednesday that putting more nonviolent offenders in prison is not the answer to the state's drunk driving problems.

"Perhaps the biggest waste of resources in all of state government is the over-incarceration of nonviolent offenders and our mishandling of drug and alcohol offenders. It is costing us billions of dollars and it is not making a dent in crime," Justice William Ray Price told the House of Representatives in the annual "state of the judiciary" speech. "We may have been tough on crime, but we have not been smart on crime."

Price's speech came hours before a major DWI bill received its first hearing. The bill, proposed by state Rep. Bryan Stevenson, R-Webb City, would require all courts in the state to enter DWI convictions into a statewide clearinghouse, making it easier for multiple drunken driving offenders to be prosecuted. The bill would also increase penalties for some multiple offenders and reduce the sentences of those who seek treatment while in prison.

Stevenson stressed that final provision in opening the hearing, with Price in attendance.

"This is directly in line with what Justice Price was talking about this morning," Stevenson said.

The issue of making various changes to the state's DWI laws promises to be one of the more high-profile debates of the 2010 legislative session.

In a series of stories in 2009, the Post-Dispatch found that persistent drunken drivers were routinely avoiding felony charges; plea deals were allowing many repeat offenders to avoid convictions; and drivers who refused blood-alcohol tests were not missing a day of driving.

Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, called for reforms in the series' wake, and in December he proposed legislation that would crack down on the most severely intoxicated drivers and enforce better tracking of prior offenses.

Tracking of the offenses — and deciding which cases get moved from municipal courts to circuit courts — received much of the attention in Wednesday afternoon's hearing.

Trying to enforce Missouri's existing tougher laws on repeat offenders is difficult, said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, because some municipalities don't keep good enough records on first-time DWI offenders. Without those records, McCulloch said, it's impossible to impose tough sentences on the most dangerous offenders.

McCulloch testified that he was in favor of most of the provisions in Stevenson's bill, but he warned that moving too many cases to circuit courts, without increasing funding for the courts, would be problematic.

That point was part of Price's morning speech, as he said that the state's funding for drug courts has lagged behind. Those courts focus less on punishment and more on treating the offender's underlying drug or alcohol problem, an approach that Price said should be applied in similar DWI courts.

"The goal is always to have safer highways, not spend millions of dollars on putting people in prison if they don't need to be there," Price said in an interview. "Our laws are as strict and harsh as any in the nation. But we need to make them more practical."

McCulloch agreed with Price's approach, suggesting that it's better to have a first-time offender back on the road with a restricted license than to take away his driving privileges only to have him back in court for driving without a license.

Stevenson said he supports more funding for DWI courts, though the provision isn't in the bill he presented Wednesday.

Other DWI bills have been presented in the Senate by Sen. Jolie Justus, D-Kansas City, and Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Lee's Summit.

At a hearing earlier this week, Bartle said he hoped the Legislature would pass a bill "free of gubernatorial politics."

"If we just end up with a DWI bill that just puts more people behind bars, we will have done nothing to reduce drunk driving," he said.