Mannix Porterfield
For the Daily Telegraph
CHARLESTON — In Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler’s estimation, the stigma of a drunken driving conviction is comparable to the scarlet letter imposed on moral failures two centuries ago.
With that argument, the Senate agreed Tuesday to let first-time DUI offenders voluntarily take part in an Interlock program and have convictions erased from their records.
Once a motorist breathes into an Interlock, if he has ingested alcohol, the motor vehicle’s ignition won’t turn over.
The bill originally made the use of Interlocks by first-time drunken motorists mandatory, but Kessler’s committee modified it so that the devices are used in conjunction with a drug-and-alcohol treatment program on a voluntary basis.
Kessler, D-Marshall, pointed out in his explanation that only drivers with no prior convictions or license revocations for DUI could participate.
The program allows an accused motorist to undergo a six-month drug-and-alcohol program, during which the criminal proceedings are held in limbo.
Once the program is successfully completed, the motorist can apply for expungement of the DUI record.
“If they would ever repeat, in effect, there would be a record of it with enhanced penalties as if it were a second of subsequent offense,” Kessler said.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving had wanted a mandatory Interlock law covering all first-time offenders. West Virginia’s DUI law, reformed two years ago, only makes the devices mandatory for aggravated DUI, those with a blood alcohol content of .15 or higher.
“What it attempts to do is take the scarlet letter off many of our folks bear for life,” Kessler said.
And with that comes difficult obstacles to find work, attend professional schools and the like. Kessler compared the bill’s intent to how the state deals with low-level possession of marijuana.
Rules for overseeing the program must be produced by the Department of Health and Human Resources by Oct. 1.
“It’s a novel concept,” Kessler said, shortly before the measure cleared on a 33-0 tally.
“But given the prison and jail overcrowding we have, we think this is an attractive method to have a carrot and a stick out there to give people the treatment that they seek.”
More importantly, he added, the bill offers motorists a chance to make a return to society in a positive fashion.
