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LAS CRUCES - With 11 drunken driving convictions, Eugene M. Serna shouldn't have been on the road Aug. 5, when the 63-year-old Las Crucen is alleged to have sailed through an intersection without stopping, drunk, with an open container of alcohol in the car. With nine convictions of his own, 45-year-old Michael David Chavez shouldn't have either. He was stopped tearing down a state highway in a borrowed Corvette with an opened bottle of vodka on April 9.
Every week, the cases presented to Do-a Ana County grand jurors show a disheartening pattern. Take the indictments from Dec. 3: a 35-year-old with four convictions and another pending; a 42-year-old with five convictions; a 43-year-old with seven convictions; and four defendants with three drunken driving convictions each. In most cases, the offenders were caught because they didn't have their headlights on, or they were speeding or failed to obey a stop sign.
But sometimes, their irresponsible actions shake or shatter the lives of their passengers, their children, or people they never even knew: The married couple driving to the airport, the baby they didn't buckle in the back seat or the boyfriend and girlfriend in the pedestrian walkway. Five people died in alcohol-related crashes in Do-a Ana County in 2007. The next year, that number increased to six. In 2009, that more than doubled, with 14 deaths. This year, there have been 11 alcohol-related crash fatalities and nearly 200 people have been injured in alcohol-related
The Fosters
It's been a week since George and Judith Foster, the principal of Desert Pride Academy in Anthony, N.M., and the principal of University Hills Elementary School in Las Cruces, respectively, were hospitalized after a head-on collision with 30-year-old repeat offender Nancy Moreno. Moreno was allegedly drunk and texting on her phone when she drifted into the Fosters' lane on Stern Drive near Mesquite at 55 miles per hour. And while their immediate concern is seeing George Foster successfully lifted from an induced coma at University Medical Center in El Paso, the Fosters are dealing - in a very personal way - with a problem they're discovering affects more New Mexico families than they ever could have imagined.
"Our anger for her is subsiding into just an anger for people who drink and drive," daughter Ashley Foster said Saturday. "We've heard from so many people who share their own frustrations with the laws and think they should be tougher."
What can be done?
Maybe all cars should be equipped with ignition interlock devices, some say, to halt anyone with booze on their breath and in their system before their two-ton danger-mobile gets rolling.
The Fosters want to do something - rally public support, advocate for new laws, show lawmakers in Santa Fe the need for preventative treatment and effective punishment during the upcoming 90-day legislative session that starts in January.
Right now, Foster said, the drunken driving laws "are nothing."
Gov.-elect Susana Martinez agrees, calling them "insufficient" - especially with no extra provisions for the people who are convicted of 18, 20 or 22 DWIs, all of which have happened in New Mexico. Felony drunken driving remains the only felony in New Mexico not subject to habitual offender provisions. Such provisions provide for a sentence enhancement of one year for each prior felony conviction on a defendant's record.
No one will ever be able to be locked away for life because of drunken driving, but minimum mandatory sentences must be increased and offenders must be ordered to successfully complete therapy - not just attend it, Martinez said this week.
"At one point, it's personal responsibility, because you can order that offenders don't drive, install an interlock, don't drink at all, but you can't have someone on the person 24/7," Martinez said. "But the moment you're caught disobeying, punishment needs to be swift and severe. They've got to know it's going to come and come hard."
Some progress
Drunken driving is down in New Mexico and across the nation. Just this week, results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that about 10.4 percent of the state's drivers admit driving while intoxicated from 2006 to 2009 - a decrease of 3 percent from the survey covering the 2002-2005 period. Surprisingly New Mexico is among the lowest in the nation for its number of intoxicated drivers, according to the survey. In Las Cruces, city police report 436 drunken driving arrests between Jan. 1 and Dec. 9 this year, down from 495 in the same time period last year.
But that's still 436 people who should have known better - 436 people who weren't dissuaded from getting behind the wheel and being caught. The seeming laxity of New Mexico's drunken driving punishments was especially apparent as Foster and her family watched a series of other defendants come before Moreno's arraignment in Magistrate Court last week.
"It was appalling," Foster said. "For drug-trafficking, they can get nine to 14 years in prison and this is something that affects them and those they're selling drugs to, but not necessarily those around them."
In contrast, a maximum three-year prison sentence for a 7th, 10th or 15th drunken driving conviction - for someone who has repeatedly risked the lives of every motorist around them - "that's not going to scare them," Foster said.
"It's one of those things," she said. "I wouldn't have chosen to go to the courtroom and see this. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. But now that I've seen and I'm totally aware, I'm just totally appalled and I want to do something to change it; my brother and sister and so many other people feel the same way and want to utilize that."
Fight back
The desire to do something has already manifested itself in a blood drive beginning Monday at Desert Pride Academy, in honor of those whose blood donations saved George Foster through transfusions immediately after the crash. More than 100 people have already signed up, filling Monday's schedule.
For others, knowing someone who's been hurt by a drunken driver has brought home the public awareness campaigns, billboards, warnings and sobriety checkpoints. A young man two doors down from them in the intensive care unit, they discovered, is facing possible brain damage after another drunken driving incident.
"It's personal," Foster said. "Even my dad's physical therapist came in (Saturday) morning, to work out his one healthy leg. One of his friend's parents was hit by a drunk driver and he was talking about all the things he wishes were different with the law. It's everywhere I go. Maybe one good thing to come out of this is we can help to change this."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ashley Meeks can be reached at (575) 541-5462.
On the road
• Residents of Do-a Ana County can take advantage of Project HOME, which offers a safe ride home for a minimal fee Fridays, Saturdays and holidays between the hours of 5:30 p.m. and 3 a.m. Call (575) 524-TAXI (8294).
• Call 911 if you spot a drunken driver, or, from a cell phone, dial Drunk Busters at #394 (#DWI)
Drunken driving
• First offense (misdemeanor): Six months to one-year license revocation (one year if younger than 21), up to 90 days in jail, mandatory DWI School, alcohol evaluation, community service and one year ignition interlock. If DWI is aggravated (.16 BAC or above, refusal to take breathalyzer or causing injury) additional two days in jail mandatory.
• Second offense: Same as first offense, but with a maximum two-year license revocation, up to 364 days in jail (four days mandatory), up to $1,000 fine ($500 mandatory), up to five years probation and mandatory two years ignition interlock. If aggravated, additional four days in jail mandatory.
• Third offense: Same as second offense, but with up to three-year license revocation, up to 364 days in jail (30 days mandatory), up to $1,000 fine ($750 mandatory) and three years ignition interlock. If aggravated, additional 60 days in jail mandatory.
• Fourth offense (fourth-degree felony): Lifetime license revocation (reviewed every five years), up to 18 months prison (6 months mandatory), up to $5,000 fine, mandatory alcohol evaluation, treatment and lifetime ignition interlock (reviewed every five years).
• Fifth offense (fourth-degree felony): Same as fourth offense, but with a maximum two-year prison sentence, one year mandatory.
• Sixth offense (third-degree felony): Same as fifth offense, but with a maximum 30-month prison sentence (18 months mandatory).
• Seventh or subsequent offense (third-degree felony): Same as sixth offense, but with a maximum three-year prison sentence, (two years mandatory).
Source: NMDOT
Actual sentences
• After his second drunken driving conviction, Rodolfo Vasquez, 37, of Anthony, N.M., was sentenced to the mandatory minimum four days in jail and the mandatory minimum fine - $500, the mandatory two years with an interlock, according to a judgment filed Monday. Third Judicial District Judge Stephen Bridgforth suspended $500 in fines and 360 days in jail, but did impose two years probation.
• After his fourth drunken driving conviction earlier this year, Ramon Enriquez, 56, of Mesquite, N.M., was sentenced to the mandatory minimum six months in jail. District Judge Fernando Macias suspended a year of his sentence and a $5,000 fine, but did impose five years probation.
• Another four-time offender (who was driving with a suspended license), Jason E. Garza, 35, of Las Cruces, was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison, an ignition interlock for life, a year on parole, $250 in fees and entrance into the state DNA registry for his latest aggravated DWI. But District Judge Lisa Schultz suspended 364 days of his sentence and $750 of a $1,000 fine - and ordered that he serve his 18 months imprisonment concurrent with a 364-day sentence Bridgforth had already handed down for Garza's third DWI.
