Advocates say they were stymied for years in attempts to gain criminal penalties for test refusals by suspected drunken drivers.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, July 6, 2006

BY BRUCE LANDIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- With family members of drunken-driving victims, some tearful, in the audience, Governor Carcieri yesterday signed legislation raising the penalties for drivers who refuse to submit to a chemical test for alcohol.

Officials and advocates said that the legislation is the first advance in anti-drunken-driving laws in three years. It promises to close a large loophole that has for years allowed suspects to dodge criminal prosecution, and serious penalties, at the cost of a modest license suspension.

Officials said the legislation should help end what Carcieri called Rhode Island's "shameful distinction."

The state has for years had the largest proportion of fatal accidents in the nation that are linked to alcohol. Because of that statistic, a group led by doctors called End Needless Death on Our Roadways, put Rhode Island at the top of a list of states it called the "Fatal Fifteen." Moreover, apparently because of the loophole officials said they closed at the State House yesterday, Rhode Island also led the nation in its percentage of test refusals.

An industry group, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which rated the laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, gave only Rhode Island its worst rating: "poor."

With the police saying drivers increasingly know how to beat the system, test refusals have risen sharply. According to Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch's office, the state prosecuted 1,075 refusal cases in 2002, 1,314 in 2003, and 1,527 in 2004, with the number falling back slightly to 1,450 last year.

The new legislation doubles the minimum license suspension for the first refusal from three months to six, and the maximum from six months to 12. It makes the second and subsequent refusals criminal offenses, and it imposes jail time, up to six months for the second offense and up to one year for the third and subsequent offenses. It also raises fines and provides for increased community service.

Carcieri, meanwhile, said he will not follow a strategy sought by Lynch, seeking Rhode Island Supreme Court reconsideration of a 15-year-old decision that police roadblocks, or "sobriety checkpoints," violate the state Constitution. "Our sense was that nothing's changed," Carcieri said, adding that he doesn't want to raise the same legal issue with the court again.

Yesterday's signing was symbolic. Carcieri actually signed the bills on June 28, putting the legislation into effect then. The state police said they have charged one person with refusal since the law went into effect.

Those involved in the legislation attributed the bill's success largely to the removal of Warwick Democrat Robert E. Flaherty from the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee, for years the graveyard of anti-drunken-driving legislation.

The last significant progress advocates such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving made was in 2003, when legislation making it a criminal offense to drive with a .08 percent blood-alcohol level passed after an 11-year struggle.

Other anti-drunken-driving legislation, including bills like the one celebrated yesterday, regularly died in the House committee.

Flaherty's removal followed repeated criticism of House Speaker William J. Murphy, along with Flaherty, from Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The group accused Murphy of having the bills killed to benefit his own law practice, which includes defending drunken-driving cases. Murphy vigorously denied it, and sacked Flaherty, replacing him with Rep. Donald J. Lally Jr., D-Wakefield.

Yesterday, some of those present remained frustrated or angry at the years of blocked legislation.

"I felt that no matter what I said, or any other victim, it didn't matter, and the decision was already made," said Richard Morsilli, who lost his 13-year-old son, Todd, to a drunken driver in 1983. He reckoned that he went to the State House a dozen times to testify, getting nowhere.

Rose McHale's husband, Joseph McHale, died on his 59th birthday after a drunken driver smashed into their car in 2003. Tearful and angry yesterday, she recalled the Judiciary Committee hearing she went to a year ago on a bill sponsored by Rep. J. Patrick O'Neill, D-Pawtucket, also a sponsor of the legislation signed yesterday.

Flaherty, she said, "was rude to Mr. O'Neill. He was rude to the state police. He had no compassion."

Flaherty, who was not at the ceremony, said afterward that "I'm never rude to the state police, for obvious reasons."

"I go out of my way to be courteous to constituents who testify," he said.

Flaherty continues to oppose the legislation. "I remain convinced that the new statute is unconstitutional" because of self-incrimination, he said. Flaherty also predicted that the new law will fail because it amounts to legally impermissible double jeopardy: two criminal charges, for refusal and for drunken driving, for the same acts.

blandis@projo.com / (401) 277-7487