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Taken from TheDay.com Treating fatalities seriously Published on 08/31/2002 Superior Court Judge Philip Scarpellino recently suspended the driver's license of Donald E. Wallace, an alleged drunken driver charged with killing two people in a crash July 27. As part of his ruling, however, Judge Scarpellino allowed Mr. Wallace to drive to and from work. For his apparent leniency, Judge Scarpellino got criticized both by Rep. Peter Nystrom, R-Norwich, and The Day. Turns out, though, that Judge Scarpellino was taking an unusual step in suspending Mr. Wallace's license at all. In drunken-driving cases, state law gives the power to suspend driver's licenses to the Department of Motor Vehicles - not to judges. One could argue that, having decided to overstep normal bounds, Judge Scarpellino should have suspended the license completely without allowing Mr. Wallace to drive to work at all. But the fact remains that the judge was trying to protect the public. He deserves credit for that. The state drunken-driving law is a minefield of technicalities and loopholes and has more twists and complications than a daytime soap opera. The defense lawyers in the legislature have fought to keep it that way and have also strenuously opposed measures to make the law stronger. So it's a mess. The law should be simplified and overhauled. One way to do so is to follow a recommendation made by a multi-agency working group that met in 1998 to examine drunken-driving laws. The group recommended that a governor's council on drunken-driving laws should be established, meeting annually to review legal developments and recommend changes in the statutes. That should be done. It would enable not only legislators to have a say, but victims' families - the ones who are often ignored. The Wallace case illustrates just one of the law's many weaknesses. Once an alleged drunken-driving crash has taken place, the perpetrator's license is suspended automatically for 24 hours. Then, the alleged drunken driver gets his license back - even if he has killed someone - until the Department of Motor Vehicles can convene a hearing on possible license revocation, usually about 30 days later. The decision to revoke someone's license is in no way affected by whether or not a fatality is involved. And judges normally have no say in suspending a license. Both provisions should change. It is ridiculous to allow someone who has killed someone, allegedly while driving intoxicated, to have the ability to drive at all. And a judge ruling on the case should more routinely be able to take the step of suspending a driver's license, even before a Department of Motor Vehicle hearing. Lawyers sometimes get hearings repeatedly delayed to allow those charged to drive for months. Other weaknesses are equally glaring. The law contains no penalty for having open containers of alcohol in the car while driving, and there is no mandatory alcohol testing of drivers who have caused a crash in which a fatality or serious injury has occurred. Usually a police officer must administer a field sobriety test to an alleged drunken driver. If the driver passes that sobriety test - walking a line, for example, or picking something up off the ground - it leaves the police officer on shaky legal ground to demand a breath test. It is all so absurd when it should be so simple. Killing someone with a car should be treated as seriously as killing someone with a knife or a gun. What the defense lawyers in the legislature want is a continuation of loopholes. But that's not what the people of Connecticut want. The least the law should do is to treat drunken-driving fatalities seriously enough to impose automatic penalties to keep alleged criminals off the road until the court system can deal with them.