DWI: Giant fines and jail time, but no need for an attorney.

Spring in the Missouri legislature always sees the introduction of bills designed to prevent drunk driving.

In addition to the Drunk Driver Victims memorial signs discussed in an earlier post, here are a couple more:

Senator Wes Shoemyer’s Senate Bill 861, attempts to close what some consider a “loophole” in the DWI laws. Currently, some DWI-related convictions do not count toward “enhanced” punishment for persons accused of subsequent alcohol offenses, unless the defendant is represented by counsel or has waived the right to an attorney in writing.

This bill simply snips away the requirement that the defendant must have been “represented by or waived the right to an attorney in writing.”

This is one of those bills that tries to crackdown on DWI offenders, but in the end may backfire by permitting the courts to get sloppy about the constitutional right to an attorney. This would result in overturned convictions and would foul up repeat offender charges.

A written waiver of an attorney is a simple method to protect defendant’s rights (and the prosecutor’s conviction record). A written waiver in the file usually ends any controversy. By doing away with this requirement, Senate Bill 861 will create more problems than it solves.

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Senator Tom Dempsey’s Senate Bill 1053 doesn’t beat around the bush. In addition to jail, fines and license suspensions (click here for a complete list), this bill tacks on an additional–and mandatory–$1,000 fine on a first offense; $2,500 on any later offense.

I guess it follows that since poor people cannot possibly pay such fines, only rich folks will be able to afford DWI’s anymore!

As a practical matter, the courts will be helpless to deal with such mandatory fines, except to sentence everyone to jail and put them on probation with orders to pay the fine in 30 - 90 days. Then when half of them can’t pay, just throw them in jail.