Source: www.LSJ.com

By Lisa Roose-Church
Daily Press & Argus

A change in Michigan's drunken driving law could see more repeat offenders spending time in prison.  Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed legislation effective Jan. 3 that eliminates the current 10-year statute of limitations between first and third, or subsequent, felony drunken driving offenses.

Under the prior law, a third offense of drunken driving would be considered a felony only if it occurred within a prior 10-year time period. However, with the revision, a driver arrested for drunken driving with two prior offenses — regardless of how old the prior convictions are — will face felony charges.

Livingston County Prosecutor David Morse wholeheartedly supports the change — known as Heidi's Law — while a defense attorney who specializes in drunken driving cases says the change will produce between 6,000 and 10,000 additional drunken driving felony cases per year and simply add to Michigan's already overcrowded jails and prisons.

"I think it's fair because a number of other crimes rely on prior convictions and none have time restrictions," Morse said.

Morse said his office encounters a case at least every month that should have been charged as a felony drunken driving, but could not because of the old law.

As an example, Morse said his office recently charged Alan Robert Hogan with third-offense drunken driving. However, under the old law, Hogan, 43, of Tyrone Township — who has alcohol-related convictions, including a felony, in 1982, 1985, 1989 and 2005 — would have only been charged with second-offense drunken driving, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in the Livingston County Jail.

Birmingham lawyer Patrick T. Barone, who co-authored the book "The DUI Book: A Offenders Handbook to Fighting a Drunk Driving Case," estimates the new law will produce between 6,000 and 10,000 additional drunken driving felony cases per year.

"I doubt the governor took this cost to the taxpayer into consideration when deciding to sign this new law," Barone said in a press release.

"If the purpose of the new law is to create more felons in our state and to cause further over-crowding in our prisons, then the law will have its intended effect," he added.

Howell-area defense attorney Lyle Dickson, who is an adviser to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the drunken driving law, agreed, saying the change in the law will not have an effect on the hard-core drunken driver.

"I don't think this is the perfect answer," he said.

Dickson, who has worked as a police officer and prosecutor, said instead he believes counties statewide need more probation officers to oversee "intensive drug and alcohol screening" as well as counseling.