DUI laws questioned in wake of fatal crash

Punishment for DUI offenders

Two days in jail or 48 hours of community service $560 in fines and fees

DUI school

Appearance before a victim impact panel

If blood alcohol was .18 or higher, mandatory alcohol evaluation that could result in additional counseling.

90-day driver's license suspension

5-day registration suspension

10 days to six months in jail and up to a $1,000 fine

$925 in fines and fees

100 hours community service

Mandatory alcohol evaluation

One-year driver's license suspension

One to six years in prison

$2,000 to $5,000 fine

Three-year driver's license suspension

Nevada has some of the toughest drunken-driving laws in the nation, but flaws in the system allowed Clark Morse, a 16-time repeat DUI offender, to be legally on the road when police say he plowed into a car driven by Megabucks winner Cynthia Jay-Brennan.

Jay-Brennan's sister, Lela Anne Jay, 45, died of a broken neck, and Jay-Brennan, 37, was still in serious condition this morning with leg injuries after the Saturday accident on Boulder Highway.

Morse, 57, was charged with felony driving under the influence after a car that police say he was driving crashed into the rear of Jay-Brennan's 1999 Chevrolet Camaro.

The Camaro was stopped at a red light with three other cars at Boulder Highway and Indios Avenue. As the Camaro was hit from behind, it smashed into the car in front of it, starting a chain reaction, police said. Several other people suffered minor injuries in the accident.

Justice of the Peace Doug Smith said today that Morse has been arrested at least 16 times for driving under the influence, with the last arrest in April 1997.

Some of the flaws in the legal system have a direct bearing on why Morse was able to be legally driving, said Bruce Nelson, a Clark County deputy district attorney who works in the vehicular crimes unit.

Court records show that Morse was indicted in that 1997 case, and he entered a plea agreement in January 1998. The plea agreement called for Morse to obtain long-term substance abuse treatment and not drive for two years. If the treatment was successful, then his DUI would be reduced to a misdemeanor.

Morse's two years was up two months ago.

Even if Morse had gone to prison on that DUI, Nelson said, he most likely would have been out of prison last Saturday anyway. People convicted on their third DUI face a possible sentence of one to six years.

In Nevada, prosecutors cannot use DUI convictions to enhance sentences if they occurred more than seven years before the current case, Nelson said. In Morse's case, most of his convictions were much older than seven years.

The fact that Morse was given such a break angers Joan Eddowes. Eddowes, the executive secretary and co-founder of Stop DUI, lost her 17-year-old son, Mark, to a drunken driver in May 1991.

Eddowes said seeing the footage of the Jay-Brennan accident or any DUI-related accident causes her to relive her son's death.

"I was so outraged at the point I heard how many times (Morse) had been let go," Eddowes said. "He should have been in prison. Somebody has to look at our whole judicial system."

Frustrated prosecutors agree but say they face a number of obstacles that hinder their ability to keep repeat offenders in jail.

Nelson said prosecutors often run into documentation problems that prevent them from trying to enhance sentences.

For example, in order to use past DUI convictions, most of which are the result of a plea agreement, prosecutors need to be able to prove that the defendant willingly gave up his right to an attorney and a trial. However, in many Municipal Courts, such as North Las Vegas, there are no court reporters documenting the proceeding and the only records that exist are handwritten notes by the judge.

In other cases, the waivers signed by the defendant can't be found or they are filled out improperly, Nelson said. Cases from out of state often take a great deal of time because each state's laws are different and prosecutors have to make a lot of calls to figure out where the defendant was convicted.

When those records arrive, sometimes there are items missing, Nelson said.

Records show that at the time Morse was placed in the Serious Offender Program in January 1998, he had two convictions for DUI. The records don't mention his 1994 DUI arrest, so it's unclear whether he was convicted.

But in any event, "Most of the people in the program have five or six DUIs," Nelson noted.

Nelson said the program is the only one in the nation that combines alcohol counseling with restrictions. It was developed three years ago when the district attorney's office realized that repeat drunken drivers were doing jail time and then being released without having addressed their alcohol problem.

Most participants are placed in the program for two years, as was Morse, Nelson said.

While all of the participants must attend counseling sessions three or four times a week, the restrictions vary, Nelson said. Some can't drive their cars and others have breath analyzers attached to their ignition switches. Some are even placed on house arrest.

Hundreds of people are currently in the program, Nelson said.

"Mr. Morse is the first person I know that has killed someone or seriously injured someone after having been in the Serious Offender Program," Nelson said. "I still have good faith in the program. I think it can work, although nothing is foolproof."

Eighty percent of the people who start the program successfully complete it, and only 2 to 3 percent of the 20 percent who don't complete the program have been arrested again for DUI, Nelson said. The remaining 17 to 18 percent are kicked out of the program for not attending class or for having a bad attitude. They end up back in the court system and being sentenced by a judge.

Although it's too soon to see how much of an impact the program will have on Nevada's DUI cases, Nelson said he believes the state has some other things going for it.

Nevada's legislators have made it possible for the state's prosecutors to use out-of-state convictions against DUI offenders, even if the state's alcohol limit is different from Nevada's 0.10, Nelson said. In addition, first- and second-time offenders face much harsher penalties than those in many other states.

In addition, Nevada is one of the few states in the nation that allows officials to use reasonable force to obtain blood and urine samples from DUI suspects if they refuse to provide it, Nelson said.

"Most states aren't like that," Nelson said. "I think we're ahead of many other states in terms of penalties and evidence gathering."

Eddowes, too, believes Nevada is on the right track.

"We have the toughest laws in the nation, but we have a bigger problem than anybody else," Eddowes said. "We are a 24-7 town that pumps out drinks all day and night."

Proof of that is in the numbers.

The Clark County district attorney's office handles between 8,000 and 8,500 DUI cases per year, and about 500 of those are felony cases, Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker said.

Nelson said two things could help prosecutors keep repeat offenders off the road. First, he would like to be able to use all past convictions to enhance sentences, and second, he would like to see the blood alcohol limit lowered to 0.08.

"The medical evidence is overwhelming that you are impaired at 0.08, and the American Medical Association believes you're impaired at 0.05," Nelson said.

Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, said he plans to introduce a bill in the 2001 Legislature that would lower the blood alcohol limit to 0.08, but that limit would only be applied to those cases in which there are bodily injuries or property damage.

Manendo called the bill a "first step," one supported by Stop DUI. Another anti-DUI group, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, instead favors an across-the board bill.

It will be Manendo's third attempt to get a DUI bill passed. Similar bills in the previous two Legislatures were defeated.

Laurel Stadler, head of MADD in Lyon County, said that when California lowered the limit to 0.08, traffic deaths dropped 10 percent.

President Clinton supports lowering the limit nationwide, but Congress has never approved such a bill, and the General Accounting Office in the federal government, said there is little statistical evidence to confirm lowering the percentage of alcohol in the bloodstream to 0.08 percent significantly reduces the number of auto crashes.

Sun reporter Cy Ryan contributed to this story.

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