LETTERS: DWI STATISTICS WERE INFLATED

To the editor:

I read with interest your paper's Aug. 15 article, "Closing the DWI loophole." I was concerned about the gross misstating of the figures used in the article on DWI statistics. Your author stated that 17.3 percent of all cases filed are DWI cases.

I do not know how your reporter came up with the figures that he used, but they are grossly inaccurate, and his effort to compare the number of DWI charges to the number of cases filed is a meaningless number, as one is not comparing the same figures. When charges are filed, including DWIs, most often there are a number of other charges filed including the DWI. If your author wished to provide a meaningful figure, then he should have compared the number of DWIs filed with the total number of charges filed. If he would have do so, he would have found that the percentage of total charges filed to DWIs would probably have been in the neighborhood of 5 percent rather than the meaningless inflated figure.

In addition, the figures that were quoted and used in the article do not take into account that over 3,600 traffic cases were filed in 1997, and that the present rate of filing there will probably be in excess of 5,000 traffic cases filed in addition to the felony and misdemeanor cases filed. While the traffic cases perhaps should not bear the same weight of seriousness as a felony or misdemeanor charge when considering the amount of time that the prosecutor's office or the courts spend in disposing of cases, those cases are a consideration to take into account.

While DWI is a serious problem and one that I do not wish to minimize, the figures used by your paper do not come close to accurately reporting the true situation as it exists in this county. I feel that it is not appropriate to use misleading figures to make a point.

GARY A. KAMP, Associate Circuit Judge

Cape Girardeau County Courthouse

Jackson