By Mike Martindale
The Detroit News
LANSING, Mich. — Since the “Super Drunk” laws went into effect more than 17 months ago, six drivers a day, on average, have been convicted under the statute, according to Michigan Secretary of State license suspension records.
Almost 3,000 “Super Drunks,” drivers with blood-alcohol counts double the legal limit of 0.08, have been taken off the road with the help of stiffer penalties, double jail time for first offenders and up to a one-year suspension of driving privileges.
“These aren’t people who just had a glass or two of wine at dinner or a party — these are people with alarmingly high blood-alcohol counts, some in the high 0.20s and even into the 0.30s, out drunk in the middle of the day,” said Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper, whose office has prosecuted 700 people under the “Super Drunk” law.
“Some of them apparently have a high tolerance for alcohol to even remain conscious,” Cooper said. “But it doesn’t take away from them being seriously intoxicated and posing a threat to themselves and everyone else on the road.”
Officials say people with levels of 0.20 or into .30 are in danger of blacking out and could require hospitalization. The situation is considered so dangerous that the policy at some police agencies, such as the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, requires a hospital emergency room clearance of anyone arrested who has a blood-alcohol count of 0.30 or higher. Veteran lawmen note longtime abusers can somehow function — at reduced ability — well into the 0.30s.
A goal of the law, effective Oct. 31, 2010, was to sideline drunken drivers. Included in the stiffer penalties of a one-year license suspension for first-time “Super Drunks” is a maximum jail sentence of 93 days to 180 days, higher fines (up to $700) and mandatory use of an ignition interlock device for a year. Motorists must first breathe into the device, and if they have been drinking, the car will not start.
The number of dangerously drunken drivers on the road is estimated to be even higher when taking into consideration those who are not yet caught, or those prosecuted under stiffer related offenses or those for repeat offenders: one year for a second operating while intoxicated arrest or up to five years in prison for a third arrest.
Recent legislation also permits communities to prosecute “Super Drunks” in district courts, and judges have discretion to provide alternative, even reduced, sentences in some cases.
Lesser penalties sought
While the law is a tool in keeping drunken drivers off the road, offenders often seek lesser penalties.
Like Rima Fakih of Dearborn, who two years ago was crowned Miss USA. She pleaded no contest last week in Wayne County to a charge of driving while impaired in a Dec. 3 incident in Highland Park.
When arrested, Fakih was speeding at 60 miles an hour, driving erratically and had a half-empty bottle of champagne behind the seat of her 2011 Jaguar. Fakih’s blood-alcohol count registered at 0.19 and 0.20 — more than twice the legal limit.
Fakih was originally charged with misdemeanor counts of operating while impaired and having open intoxicants in her vehicle. A civil infraction of careless driving also was dismissed, and she will be sentenced May 9 on the charge, which carries up to 93 days in jail or a $500 fine. First-time offenders frequently receive probation and other conditions. Fakih’s plea spared her not only a trial but also other penalties, including a possible suspension of driving privileges for a year under the “Super Drunk” law.
Sherry McGee, executive director of Michigan’s Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the “Super Drunk” law does not go far enough.
“MADD supports any legislation which helps get drunk drivers off the road,” said McGee. “The ‘Super Drunk’ law does contain punitive sanctions against drunk drivers and helps in that effort. Drunk driving is 0.08, and this still leaves a gap between that and 0.17. But the law is a step in the right direction.”
The law also features the longest alcohol rehabilitation treatment requirement on the books: one year. Penalties for multiple convictions are not affected as those penalties remain very high (i.e. one year in jail or a prison sentence for third-time offenders). Once on probation under the law, there is a significant therapeutic component to the statute; up to one-year alcohol rehabilitation treatment at the judge’s discretion.
“Super Drunks” surfaced in Metro Detroit headlines in recent years before we ever had a new name for them. Like Frances Dingle, 47, of Mount Clemens, who is in prison after she slammed into a van in March 2009, killing four teenagers. She blew a 0.16 — just under the “Super Drunk” level. And Thomas Wellinger, now serving a 19- to 30-year prison sentence for killing a woman and her two sons while he had an alarmingly high blood-alcohol count of 0.43.
Some not deterred
License suspensions do not guarantee drunks won’t get behind the wheel. And enhanced penalties apparently don’t deter hard-core offenders, like two drunken drivers arrested within a few hours of each other in Ferndale in February.
Kevin Jerome Spates, 30, of Detroit, was stopped while driving with an improper license plate. Spates had a 0.35 blood-alcohol count and would likely have been prosecuted as a “Super Drunk” - had he not already had convictions for drunken driving (two), driving while license suspended (four) and 31 suspensions of his driver’s license.
Spates pleaded guilty and was sentenced April 12 as a habitual offender to 300 days in jail, more than $1,300 in fines and costs, 60 days of community service, numerous counseling and treatment conditions upon release, and his vehicle will be immobilized for one year.
William Leonard Rhodes, 50, of Detroit, stopped when spotted swerving in his car, had a 0.33 level — and 16 current license suspensions, convictions for driving on a suspended license (five times) and drunken driving (three times).
Neither man was charged under the state’s Super Drunk law because they are not first-time offenders.
There were 264 fatal alcohol-related crashes in 2010, the most recent figures available, compared to 419 in 2001. And alcohol-related injury crashes dropped during the same period in Oakland and Wayne counties (each down 42 percent) and Macomb (down 31 percent) compared to 2001 figures, according to the Michigan Drunk Driving Audit released last year. Yet drunken driving remains a concern.
In Oakland County, with a population around 1.2 million, there were 78 “Super Drunk” cases in the first two months it went into effect (about one a day) and 513 “Super Drunk” total cases in 2011.
In the first two months of this year, there have been 109 cases, putting it on pace to set a record, according to Cooper.
Drunken drivers without high blood-alcohol counts also continue to be high in Oakland County. There were 347 first offenders in 2009; 351 in 2010; 452 in 2011; and 63 so far this year, she said.
“I don’t know if we can properly determine what the number of ‘Super Drunk’ arrests mean just yet or if efforts are effective,” said Cooper.
“We know a lot of people driving around drunk with high levels of alcohol But are efforts like the new law and sobriety court having effect on numbers?
“It might be a decade before we can accurately measure and calculate what it all means.”
Copyright 2012 The Detroit News