MADD report: Weak SC laws on DUI video evidence let dangerous drunk drivers go free
A just-released MADD report on South Carolina’s DUI arrests and prosecutions says that state laws go too easy on dangerous drunk drivers.
“South Carolina makes the arrest, investigation and prosecution of DUI cases far too difficult,” said the report, made public early Tuesday by the state chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “We deserve better.”
Major findings in the report:
▪ The Legislature should amend the state’s police dash camera recording laws to allow other evidence in a DUI arrest to be used even when there is a problem with the video. In South Carolina, the video is considered a required piece of evidence. Legally imperfect videos cause a high rate of people pleading guilty to lesser charges, such as reckless driving. “Our dash cam video statute is a major problem and needs to be changed.”
▪ South Carolina laws allow police officers to be unfairly pitted against savvy, privately retained defense lawyers. The state “puts an especially high burden on an officer arresting someone for DUI because of the exacting procedures required by law,” the study says. “Even experienced, diligent officers sometimes neglect to fulfill every requirement of the DUI investigaiton.”
▪ Secrecy should be minimized, and openness stressed, in the state’s DUI courts. Public observation of how case outcomes are arrived at is essential.
“There is a concerning lack of visibility of the handling of cases in certain courts we monitor, to the extent that we cannot monitor them as everything is worked out ‘in the back’ and the final decisions are not even announced in open court,” said the report, written by MADD S.C. director Steven Burritt.
Many of the groups that form part of DUI prosecution system – officers, prosecutors, judges and magistrates – are doing the “absolute best they can, given their resources and circumstances,” the report says. “However, we call upon those groups, and the Legislature, to do more because S.C. continues to rank toward the bottom of states in regard to drunk driving” convictions.
South Carolina consistently has one of the highest rates of alcohol-impaired vehicle fatalities in the nation, according to the study. “Research shows that the first-time DUI offender has driven drunk an average of 80 times prior to their first arrest,” the report says.
The report, which relied on trained volunteers to monitor courts and collect related data, focused on cases in the 5th Judicial Circuit of Kershaw and Richland counties and the 13th Judicial Circuit of Greenville and Pickens counties. Those are two of the three circuits in the state that have the highest DUI-related fatality and injury collisions.
The time period involving the 832 cases monitored in the study was from Jan. 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, 2016. The report is the first phase of what will be a three-year study. Over three years, far more data will be collected, allowing researchers to include the results of 379 cases that were begun, but had no final court outcome, during the nine months studied.
This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 12:01 AM with the headline "MADD report: Weak SC laws on DUI video evidence let dangerous drunk drivers go free."