DRINKING-RELATED ACCIDENTS DOWN IN STATE, NATION (LAST IN A SERIES)

Officials argue that senseless drinking and driving accounts for too many deaths across the nation. But on average, the number of drinking-related fatal accidents has declined in the past decade.

Sgt. Brent Davis with Troop E of the highway patrol said drinking and driving now has more of a negative stigma than in previous years. He said most people arrested once for DWI probably don't get arrested again -- and probably don't have a severe drinking problem. But the people getting arrested over and over need help.

And road officers have been doing their part in discouraging drunk driving.

Lt. Ron Beck of the Missouri Highway Patrol Headquarters in Jefferson City said troopers arrested 9,430 people for DWI in 1994. Across the state, 34,427 people were charged with DWI last year.

According to a 1992 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1.2 million people were arrested for drinking-related offenses across the nation.

"It's getting better, but it's a problem," Davis said. "Alcohol is a drug and people get addicted to it."

As for loopholes in Missouri's DWI laws, law enforcement agencies and special interest groups are working to tighten those loops.

The executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Missouri, Rich Echols, said more work on DWI legislation needs to be done. But the state has come a long way in making penalties stiffer for repeat offenders, he said.

"There are loopholes," Echols said. "We're working just as hard as we can to tighten them."

Echols, who formerly worked with the Missouri Division of Highway Safety, said the state has made great strides in discouraging people from drinking and getting behind the wheel.

Neither the Missouri Department of Revenue -- which tracks Missourians' driving records -- nor the highway patrol know how many people arrested for DWI offenses in Missouri are repeat offenders. They also don't know if a case like John Wayne Newell Jr., is an isolated occurrence.

Newell was arrested in July for DWI and charged as a first-time offender despite two previous convictions of drinking-related charges: a DWI in 1983 and involuntary manslaughter in 1988.

But Newell was charged as a first-time offender because the law says the two other DWI convictions must occur within 10 years of the third charge in order for the new charge to be stiffer.

"If he would've been convicted of something other than DWI, we could've charged him as a prior and persistent offender," said Morley Swingle, the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney.

Despite the previous DWI and Newell's causing a fatality while drinking and driving, he doesn't face prison and a felony conviction. The maximum penalty he can get is six months in the county jail on a misdemeanor charge.

The prosecutor said his hands were tied when it came to charging Newell. He doesn't meet the time restrictions for the DWI charge to be a felony.

But the prosecutor is trying to change the "arbitrary-chosen time frames" the legislature picked when setting forth the enhanced penalties for DWI.

Swingle wrote a letter earlier this month to the Missouri Division of Highway Safety, looking for support to tighten the statute.

"I would suggest the arbitrary five- and 10-year limitations on use of the prior offense be deleted from the law," he wrote in his letter.

Swingle also wrote that if the legislature won't accept that suggestion, then the statute addressing "persistent and prior offenders" be amended to include "intoxication-related" traffic offenses. The statute currently omits those offenses.

Despite Swingle's efforts, the family of the Oak Ridge woman killed by Newell seven years ago doesn't think legislators view DWI as seriously as they do.

And Charlie Wilson, the father of the woman killed, said lawmakers aren't quick to propose legislation infringing on drinking and driving. He cited House Speaker Bob Griffin and House Minority Leader Mark Richardson as examples. Both men have been cited for DWI in recent years.

Griffin pleaded guilty to the 1993 charge and lost his license for a year.

Richardson was tried in July and found not guilty because an expert witness testified that the lawmaker's Breathalizer would've been adversely affected by the cold medicine he was taking. But Richardson admitted consuming some alcohol before getting behind the wheel.

"It's hard to get a law changed when lawmakers are doing the same thing," Wilson said.