CANDLES BURN FOR VICTIMS OF DWI

About 30 people met Sunday night at a Mothers Against Drunk Drivers candlelight vigil at the Cape Girardeau Police Department to pray for those they love who had been hurt or killed by drunk drivers.

Cape Girardeau Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle was on hand to tell those people how he would like to see DWI laws stiffened in Missouri.

"With rare exceptions, the person who kills somebody while driving while intoxicated didn't intend to kill anybody," Swingle said. "He was just being criminally stupid.

"I do think that because of that question of intent, they are viewed less seriously. DWIs as a whole are viewed by many people as a less serious crime than other offenses."

Intent doesn't matter to Charlie and Loretta Wilson of Jackson as they try to go through the holidays without their daughter Cathy, who was killed in 1990 by a drunk driver.

"My daughter's just as dead as if he had pulled a gun and shot her," Charlie Wilson said. "He got sentenced to four years. And out of that four years he served 13 months.

"They have so many other hardened criminals that they just kind of pass DWI as a misdemeanor. But he did kill our daughter."

Swingle told the MADD group that he's hoping to change the DWI law that forced prosecutors to charge Johnny Wayne Newell Jr. as a first offender when he was picked up for DWI a short while after being released from prison for Cathy Newell's death.

Newell, who had been convicted twice before for alcohol-related offenses, was sentenced to two months in the county jail in September. His first DWI conviction was more than 10 years old and the manslaughter conviction could not be used against him to elevate his status beyond a first-time offender.

"The way the law is now written a manslaughter conviction by DWI does not count as a prior conviction to make a guy a second or third time offender later on down the road," he said. "The Legislature needs to amend that particular statute to be sure that someone who has killed somebody while driving while intoxicated isn't then a first offender the next time this comes along.

"My feeling is you should only have the chance to kill somebody one time while driving while intoxicated."

Swingle said he'll be sending letters out to every member of the Missouri Senate Judiciary Committee, the Missouri House Judiciary Committee and the attorney general. He'll be asking that the law be amended so that manslaughter DWI or assault DWI are not only considered to be prior DWI convictions but also automatically categorize the defendant as a persistent offender.

Persistent DWI offenders are charged as felons the next time they are brought to court for DWI.

Two hundred-sixty-six people were killed and more than 7,000 injured by drunk drivers in Missouri last year.

"I view DWI as a crime of intent," Swingle said, "because we have been so successful in getting the message out that it is a crime to drive while intoxicated, and because it is so easy to either have a designated driver or call a cab.

"I think the person has made the choice to drink and drive. And therefore criminally responsible for the consequences."

Charlie Wilson said he thinks some things are getting better, but nothing can replace the loss of his daughter.

"The courts are better than they used to be. We have stiffer DWI laws now than we had when Cathy got killed," he said. "That's something we won't ever have from Cathy is grandchildren. Holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas really haven't been the same since then because she's been taken away. It just leaves and empty spot that she used to fill."