Wednesday, March 8, 2006 | 8:01 a.m.
The Clark County District Attorney's Serious Offender Program has taken up to 250 repeat DUI offenders. People with two prior convictions for driving under the influence and a third case pending are eligible. People with an extensive criminal history or a DUI conviction in which there was death or substantial bodily harm are not eligible.
The offender:
Results:
If they fail to complete the program they are subject for sentencing. A third-offense DUI conviction is nonprobational; a judge is required to sentence them to prison for one to 6 years.
Successful completion results in a misdemeanor, second-offense conviction of DUI on the offender's criminal record.
Clark County District Attorney David Roger stopped a program aimed at curbing the recidivism rate of people driving under the influence because, he said, it's illegal.
The Serious Offender Program, which has been run by the district attorney's office as a pilot project since 1999, has by nearly all accounts worked well.
It gives people charged with a third noninjury DUI a chance to plead guilty and enter an intensive three-year program of counseling and monitoring. If they succeed, the third DUI is removed. If they fail, they face a prison sentence of up to six years.
But in a memo sent to his prosecutors last week, Roger said that state law prevents them from negotiating the third DUI case to admit people into the program.
He said the law is pretty clear that prosecutors can only negotiate DUI cases "if we can't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial." Roger stressed that "we shouldn't even be submitting cases if we can't prove them."
Roger made it clear that although he's "heard it's a great program from many people" he is "bound to follow the law."
"If the Legislature wants to amend the statute, that's their right, but we have to follow the law as is," Roger said.
There hasn't been a case to challenge the program or any complaints, he said, adding the office came to the realization that it wasn't following the law.
The former head of the DUI unit, Gary Booker, who helped create the program in 1998, called it a "very conservative and narrow" interpretation of the law.
"I'm just not sure why David Roger is choosing to challenge the legality at this time," said Booker, who said the district attorney's office looked at the question when the program started and found it was legal.
"This is the right program for the right cases," said Booker, who now as a private attorney defends DUI cases and serves as a part-time prosecutor in Boulder City and a special prosecutor in Henderson. "I would rather have an offender plead guilty and (be) given a chance to change and as a result make society safer in the future than have an offender serve a prison sentence, get out and commit another DUI offense."
Booker said the district attorney's vehicular crimes unit was recognized in 2003 by the federal government based on the success of the program.
Steve Grierson, specialty courts manager for Clark County, said discussions are already under way to bring a bill to the Legislature next year to either reinstitute the program or create a court to handle DUI cases.
"Nobody questions the value of the project, but it's just time we all have this discussion at the Legislature and make sure we are doing everything in accordance to statute," Grierson said. "We have people that spent three years in, graduated and now have three years out and the statistics speak for themselves."
Court statistics show that 218 people have completed the program and there has been a 9 percent recidivism rate.
Booker said when he took over the district attorney's DUI unit in 1995 he quickly noticed a disturbing trend in which "people were getting their third DUI offense, going to prison and then within six months of being released committing another DUI."
"We had a revolving door of justice involving DUI cases," Booker said. "We sat down and decided we had to stop this trend and both keep the community safe while at the same time trying to get people help so they wouldn't re-offend."
Most troubling of all to Booker was the fact that people with prior DUI convictions made up the largest percentage of DUI cases resulting in death and bodily harm.
Those individuals with third offenses that resulted in death or bodily harm are not eligible for the program. Booker also pointed out that if a third-offender has a history of crime outside of DUI they are screened out and are not eligible for enrollment in the program.
Booker said when creating the program he said addressing the concerns of victims was a top priority, which is why he asked Sandy Heverly, the head of STOP DUI, a nonprofit organization dedicated to stop driving under the influence, to be an active participant in creating the program.
Heverly is out of the country and was unable to respond to calls made by the Sun seeking comment on the Serious Offender Program.
Speaking on behalf of his office, Deputy Public Defender Drew Christensen said he is upset the program is coming to a halt under Roger's directive, but he remains hopeful the program will continue to exist in the future.
"We applaud any alternative sentencing or guidelines available to defendants that provide help instead of just prison time," Christiansen said. "Whether it's Mental Health Court, Drug Court or the Serious Offender Program, we think society and the justice system is better off by providing help to the offender."
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