New law enforcement team to crack down on DUI

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Second Judicial Circuit Solicitor Barbara Morgan said most prosecutors serving in the Palmetto State would say it’s easier to try a murder case than a DUI.

She is one of many local officials supporting efforts to change the state’s current DUI laws and, in turn, save lives, she said.

Morgan, Aiken County Sheriff Michael Hunt, Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton, members of Aiken Public Safety, North Augusta Public Safety and the S.C. Highway Patrol met in Aiken Thursday afternoon to address highway safety and ways to decrease the number of deaths on area roadways.
Last year 1,073 people died statewide in traffic-related crashes. Locally, there were 45 lives claimed.

One of the most commonly voiced concerns is that of the current DUI law.
Criticisms include requiring officers to advise suspected drunken drivers of their Miranda rights multiple times during an arrest.

Sen. Shane Massey was recently appointed to the subcommittee reviewing a bill that would create a tiered penalty system based on a driver’s blood-alcohol content, close loopholes such as the requirement for multiple Miranda readings and suspend for one year the license of someone who refuses to take a breath test.

“Currently there are two separate laws,” Massey explained. “The DUI law limit is .10 which is the presumption that you are intoxicated, but for a prosecutor to win that case, they have to convince the jury that person was intoxicated.”
The separate law is .08 unlawful concentration law.
“It doesn’t matter if you are intoxicated,” he said. “If you are driving with that level, it is illegal.”
But that law is hardly ever prosecuted, Morgan said.
Law enforcement officers have argued that the level of unlawful concentration was set at .08, knowing highway funds would have been cut otherwise.

“There is a real effort statewide to revamp the whole DUI system in order to make that law consistent and proper, while at the same time making it such that prosecutors can actually win those cases,” he said.

South Carolina is the only state requiring videotape of both a driver’s sobriety test and breath test and it’s among the most lenient states in letting drivers refuse a breath test.
Nearly 500 people die annually on South Carolina’s roads in alcohol-related accidents, the third highest in the nation when the number of miles driven is taken into account, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In addition to the call for legal reform, the S.C. Highway Patrol announced its new Crash Intervention and Traffic Enforcement Team (CITE).

The team will consist of three troopers and one supervisor, who will be calling on local law enforcement officers to aid their enforcement efforts. The Second Judicial Circuit’s Law Enforcement Network (LEN) pledged its help.
Officers will be ramping up their efforts on I-20.

Capt. Chris Williamson, S.C. Highway Patrol, said the number of deaths on the stretch of interstate that runs through Aiken County climbed from zero in 2006 to 10 in 2007.

The officers, including new motorcycle troopers, will be patrolling I-26 in Orangeburg and I-20 in Aiken, looking for poor driving behavior.

Increased enforcement will run through the weekend.
Contact Karen Daily at kdaily@aikenstandard.com.

Aiken Standard
By KAREN DAILY
1/19/08

Posted January 21, 2008