On the prowl for drunken drivers
No shortage of DWI arrests for local police
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| Roy Sykes photo St. Peters Police Officer Erin O'Neal talks to a driver he will soon arrest on a charge of driving while intoxicated. |
Drunk drivers. They are far from an endangered species.
Enforcing driving-while-intoxicated laws is a dangerous cat-and-mouse game in which the mice outnumber the cats. Typically, a person has driven drunk 50 times before being nabbed the first time, according to a 2002 study cited in a 2005 report by the Governors Highway Safety Association.Nevertheless, public perception has changed since 1980, when a drunk driver killed a 13-year-old girl walking to a church carnival in California, a tragedy that launched Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
"Drunk driving is no longer an acceptable behavior," says Katie Heineman, executive director of the Gateway Chapter of MADD.
That's the good news. Along with the fact that alcohol-related traffic fatalities have decreased nationally by 44 percent since 1980 and have held steady at about 17,000 a year for the last decade.
Today, MADD's main objective is to eliminate drunk driving entirely, largely through technology. In years past, the organization successfully pushed for all 50 states to adopt these two standards: a minimum drinking age of 21 and a blood alcohol content of .08 percent for presumed legal impairment. Now, MADD wants all 50 states to mandate that DWI offenders, even first-timers, have ignition-interlock devices installed in their vehicles.
Currently, only four states have such a requirement; three more passed laws this year. Missouri lawmakers earlier this month moved in that direction, making it mandatory for all second-time offenders.
The interlock device requires drivers to prove they're not impaired by first blowing into a breathalyzer to start their cars, and intermittently blowing to keep their cars going.
There's more on the technology horizon, Heineman says. Nissan is testing a vehicle that would monitor impairment through odor sensors, a gear shift knob that checks for perspiration and a camera that scans the eyes for alertness.
MADD's hope is that some day, if you're too drunk to drive, your car won't let you.
But until then, there's no shortage of impaired drivers for officers like Erin O'Neal, 29, with the St. Peters Police Department, to arrest.
ALL IN THE REPORT
For O'Neal, who is trained in DWI enforcement, it's not the drivers who will review his work in painstaking detail, checking, for example, if he followed procedure in administering field sobriety tests. It's the defense lawyers who will try to bust O'Neal's chops in court.
O'Neal recalls the time a lawyer asked him in court about the road and weather conditions when he administered the field sobriety tests, which include walking heel-to-toe and standing on one leg.
Was there a wind? What was the temperature? Was there water on the road? Did you leave your police lights on, which could have distracted the driver as he tried to walk heel to toe?
"He put me in the position where I had to say, 'I don't recall,' about 20 times," O'Neal says.
Ever since, it's all in O'Neal's report.
He carries a small cassette recorder. He tapes his observations, as well as his interactions with drivers, including, for example, their slurred speech. He later puts it all in a written report.
O'Neal has what he considers a fail-safe system in which he imagines that a judge, for whatever reason, will toss out the results of the field sobriety tests. And then toss out the breathalyzer test result.
Even in that unlikely scenario, O'Neal says, he will still have his own police-report narrative of what happened, what the driver said and why it should be convincingly clear that the person he pulled over is guilty of driving while intoxicated.
Officers like O'Neal know that what they do at a roadside stop at 4 o'clock in the morning can fall under the microscope of people like St. Peters defense attorney Charlie James.
In an interview, James plops onto a table the three-inch thick DWI instructor's manual from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The manual details, for example, the proper way to do field sobriety tests.
"A good defense lawyer who does DWI work had better know this book better than the officer knows it," James says.
UNIVERSAL RESPONSE: ONLY 'A COUPLE'
It's just past 11 p.m. on Friday, April 4. In an unmarked car, O'Neal leaves the St. Peters Police Department with two passengers: a Suburban Journal reporter and photographer.
"I tend to do well on Mid Rivers Mall Drive," he says.
O'Neal cruises south along Mid Rivers Mall Drive to Highway 94, turns right and then left onto Wolfrum. He hits the car's flashing lights and pulls over a blue Nissan Xterra.
(O'Neal would explain later that he became suspicious when he observed the driver do three things: move so far into the left-turn lane that part of the vehicle faced oncoming traffic; follow another vehicle too closely; and turn without a signal.)
O'Neal cautiously approaches the driver's window. After a brief conversation O'Neal asks the driver to step out of the car.
In any traffic stop, says St. Peters Lt. Kevin Turnbough, an officer can order someone out of a vehicle for safety reasons. But there is no requirement that drivers attempt the field sobriety tests. Nevertheless, the reality, police say, is that a refusal will be interpreted as an attempt to hide guilt.
"If they don't take the test more than likely they will be arrested on the spot," says O'Fallon Sgt. Mike Plum. He estimates that 75 percent of those who take field sobriety tests do so poorly that they are arrested and charged with DWI.
James, the defense attorney, has a more skeptical view of the tests: Failure is a foregone conclusion.
"If I'm the officer and I have a hunch that you are intoxicated, there is no way that you are going to pass those field sobriety tests," James says.
On this stop, the Xterra's driver tells O'Neal he was at a buddy's house watching the Cardinals game and is only a mile from home.
O'Neal asks how much he's had to drink. The driver offers what police consider the universal response - one intended to show a willingness to cooperate without actually being truthful.
"A couple," the driver tells him.
The first evaluation is called the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. O'Neal stands on the lawn, with the driver slightly below him on the street. O'Neal shines a flashlight in the driver's face. With his free hand, O'Neal passes his index across the driver's field of vision.
O'Neal has difficulty with the test because the driver is not following instructions. The driver should only move his eyes as he follows the finger. Instead, he moves his entire head.
So O'Neal has the man press his palms into his cheeks so as not to turn his head. It doesn't help. This time the man turns his entire upper body, head and all, to follow the finger.
In this test, unless there is a medical reason, if the eyes bounce and jerk, the person is most likely too impaired to drive. Ideally, police say, there should be a "smooth pursuit."
Next, O'Neal asks the driver to take nine heel-to-toe steps down an "imaginary line" on the street, then turn and take nine more.
O'Neal demonstrates. It is important that O'Neal, or any officer, not ask a driver to do anything that he personally cannot do. A defense attorney would love to have an officer stumble in court while giving a heel-to-toe demonstration, or trip over his tongue as he tries to count backward.
The driver can't walk heel-to-toe and stumbles as he turns.
"I am extremely nervous right now," he says.
"I understand," O'Neal says.
Next, O'Neal asks the driver to hold one leg straight out, so the foot is 6 inches off the ground, and to hold it there until instructed to put it down. It's not part of the instruction -- so drivers don't know this -- but the goal is 30 seconds.
The driver can't do it for more than two or three seconds.
Fifteen minutes after being pulled over for sloppy driving, the man is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.
WHAT DRIVERS DON'T KNOW
In a bare cinder-block room in the St. Peters police station, the driver agrees to blow into a Datamaster breathalyzer, a nondescript device with only a few knobs and dials, about the size of a large briefcase. When it's time to blow, the machine hums like an air compressor and then spits out fortunes you won't find in cookies.
James, the defense attorney, says police and prosecutors like to call them "instruments."
"I like to call them 'machines,'" James says. "That's because we know that 'machines' break all the time. If they were so infallible, we wouldn't get new ones with newer technology."
Driving is a privilege, not a right. There's an implied consent law. Part of the deal of having a driver's license is that you've agreed in advance to submit to a test - either breath, blood, saliva or urine.
If you refuse, you run the risk of losing your license.
The drug of choice for most drivers is alcohol. Police, in turn, typically use the breathalyzer, which tests for alcohol.
Most drivers don't know that police have the right to ask for a second test. This would happen, for example, if the arresting officer is convinced the driver is impaired, yet blows a .00 on the breath test. A urine test - which must be witnessed by an officer of the same sex - could reveal the use of illegal drugs.
Police inform drivers that if they don't consent to a test their license immediately will be revoked for a year.
That typically scares drivers into submission, says Todd Ryan, a St. Charles defense attorney.
But police do not tell drivers what defense attorneys know. There is a civil process for appealing that revocation through the Department of Revenue.
"It is the appeals process on the refusal side, for first-time offenders, that is the most successful generally," Ryan says.
There's also an appeal for those who blow and test positive. But that route is far less successful from a defense standpoint, Ryan says.
Police are not required to tell drivers this: They have 20 minutes to contact a lawyer before deciding to blow. But if you're pulled over at 4 o'clock on a Saturday morning, odds are you're not going to reach your lawyer in the first place.
TAKING THE BLOW
Here's what's at stake for a driver who blows.
If the result is below .08 percent, which is the legal limit, the driver has helped himself by making it more difficult, although certainly not impossible, for a prosecutor to convict him of DWI. He also does not have his license immediately revoked.
But if he blows at or over .08 percent, he has just handed the prosecutor the most damning evidence in any DWI case - a positive breath test.
"Because of the way we can do this, with first-time DWIs, if there is any chance that you are intoxicated, refuse the breathalyzer," Ryan says.
Says James, "If you really want the best defense, then don't blow. Because, then, you only have to deal with the officer and not the machine."
Defense attorney Andy Koor, of O'Fallon, advises drivers to take the breathalyzer if they know they will pass. But there's something else Koor needs to say.
"We can make this a lot easier," he says. "Don't drink and drive."
Unfortunately, back at the St. Peters Police Station, the situation is well beyond that point.
This driver, who only had "a few" beers, blows a .168 percent, twice the legal limit. He is a first-time offender.
THINK THEY'D KNOW BETTER
The night has grown cold, down to about 35 degrees with gusty winds. At 1 a.m., O'Neal is back on the prowl.
"I've had two drinks," the 30-year-old woman says. She stands outside Barnes & Noble, off of Mid Rivers Mall Drive. She wears a black tank top with white letters: "Got tequila?"
She was pulled over for speeding. Her blue Malibu is nearby.
She can't walk heel to toe. She can't stand on one leg. She can't count backward, as requested.
"...57, 56, 55, 54, 55, 56 15, 8."
She has a vague awareness the numbers didn't come out like they should have. She asks O'Neal, "I know I've (expletive) up, haven't I?"
O'Neal arrests her, cuffing her wrists. In the backseat of the squad she complains about the cuffs.
"They're hurting my ankles," she says.
"Your ankles?" O'Neal asks.
Back at the station, O'Neal escorts her into the booking area. Another officer is processing a man, also arrested for DWI, who staggers like a landlubber on deck during high seas. He's been throwing up in a trash bucket.
The woman arrested by O'Neal, who's had just "two drinks," agrees to blow.
The result is .184 percent, well over twice the legal limit for being impaired.
Soon, O'Neal is ready to head out again. The night is young. His shift won't end until 6:30 a.m.
It's past what police call "drunk thirty," or 1:30 a.m., when the bars close. But officers know there's a next phase in this ongoing game of cat and mouse. After a night of hard drinking, for some drivers it's straight to the fast-food joints for late-night munchies.
People should know better, O'Neal says. They know the dangers. They know about designated drivers. They know about calling a cab.
Yet, for so many, it still doesn't matter. It's 2 a.m., a sweet hour for arresting drunks.
About this series
This is the second in a Journal series about driving while intoxicated in St. Charles County. Today: Ride along with the St. Peters Police as they search for impaired drivers. Last week: A new law will require repeat offenders to blow into machines before their cars start. Later: Police train to identify drivers under the influence of drugs other than alcohol.
According to the Missouri Revised Statutes: "A person commits the crime of 'driving while intoxicated' if he operates a motor vehicle while in an intoxicated or drugged condition."
But if it were that simple, there wouldn't be so many related DWI laws, so many Department of Revenue guidelines regarding drivers licenses, and so many court cases.
You might not know, for example, that people on their riding mowers have been convicted of DWI, says Lt. Kevin Turnbough, with the St. Peters Police Department.
You can also be convicted of DWI if you're drunk, asleep in the backseat of your car, in your very own driveway. If the motor's running.
Finally, you can be convicted of DWI if you're taking prescribed medication, especially if it's not yours or if you were advised not to operate a motor vehicle while taking it.
