Critics say Mo. law is too easy on drunken drivers who kill

ST. LOUIS -- For Robert Ley, it's a no-brainer.

A drunken driver is criminally responsible if he strikes a pedestrian and drives away while the victim is left to die.

His son, Benjamin Ley, 23, died that way on Nov. 14, just after leaving a St. Louis tavern.

The driver returned a few minutes later to surrender. His blood test measured more than double Missouri's legal limit. Ley, of Fenton, assumed that the driver would go to prison.

But last month, St. Louis prosecutors decided against a charge of first-degree involuntary manslaughter against the driver, Michael Moehl, 55. A conviction could have meant seven years in a state prison.

Instead, they charged Moehl on Feb. 19 with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. He faces six months in jail, but as a first-time offender is more likely to get probation.

Robert Ley, 55, pledged to challenge the lesser charge. Mothers Against Drunk Driving has asked prosecutors to reconsider.

"The attorney told me ... they wouldn't be able to charge him with involuntary manslaughter because he didn't break any traffic laws." Ley said.

Prosecutors said that under Missouri law, they may charge involuntary manslaughter only when they believe a drunken driver is at fault in a fatal accident.

The St. Louis circuit attorney's office said it explores involuntary manslaughter charges whenever a drunken driver is involved in a fatal crash.

But judges generally instruct juries to find a defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter only if the state has shown that the drunken driver caused the death by criminal negligence.

Criminal negligence is easy to prove if a reliable witness testifies the driver violated a traffic signal or was speeding.

That was the case in 1998, when St. Louis Rams linebacker Leonard Little was charged with involuntary manslaughter after a traffic accident that killed a woman. Little had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 percent.

He also ran a red light before broadsiding the woman's car. For prosecutors, that action proved criminal negligence.

Moehl committed no such overt traffic offense.

By and large, Missouri courts have required a flagrant, careless act such as running through a stop light, for example, to prove criminal negligence. There is one exception.

In 1999, the state's appellate court affirmed an involuntary manslaughter conviction in which a driver with a blood-alcohol content of 0.21 percent fatally struck a bicyclist on a St. Charles County highway in 1995.

The jury found that the driver had failed to maintain a "proper lookout" while driving because drinking had slowed his reflexes.

City prosecutors could have filed involuntary manslaughter charges against Moehl, said Mark W. Smith, an associate dean at Washington University School of Law and a former president of the St. Louis police board.

Americans have become less tolerant of drunken drivers, Smith noted. Public outrage over fatal crashes has led other states to change their laws. It could eventually lead to change in Missouri, he said.