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Team 4: Legal Loophole Lets Drunk Drivers Back On Road

Caught On DUI In Pa.? You Could Be Back On Road Same Day

POSTED: 1:53 pm EST November 19, 2009
UPDATED: 11:56 pm EST November 19, 2009

PITTSBURGH -- Every year, more than 50,000 Pennsylvania drivers get caught driving drunk, and they're all allowed to keep driving after getting arrested.

Critics call it a loophole in the law, a loophole that Team 4's Jim Parsons found most other states have closed.

What follows below is a transcript of Parsons' report.

(Video - Watch The Team 4 Report)

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Forty-one states have laws requiring that a person arrested for drunk driving loses his or her drivers' license on the spot. But not in Pennsylvania. Here, you can get drunk, get in a crash, hurt or kill someone and get back behind the wheel to drive again. Legally.

Somehow, a two-year-old boy survived this crash last summer with only minor injuries. His mother was not so lucky.

Michelle Salati: "My daughter loved her son very much."

Michelle Salati, of Springdale, still doesn't know why her daughter Andrea Baker drove the wrong way on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and hit two tractor-trailers head-on. Andrea was killed instantly.

At the time of the crash, Andrea was awaiting trial in two separate cases for driving under the influence of prescription drugs. In most states, her license would have been seized by a police officer when she got arrested. But not in Pennsylvania.

Traci Vetovich, MADD: We have people who kill people and for 18 months they go through the system and they don't get their license suspended."

Jim Parsons: "You've seen that?"

Traci Vetovich, MADD: "Yes, absolutely."

Dr. Kenneth Levin: "He drove out of his driveway across the lawn here."

Dr. Kenneth Levin says he'll never forget the week last year when one of his Squirrel Hill neighbors was arrested three times in eight days for DUI.

Dr. Kenneth Levin: "Knocked into my wife's car up and into the side of the house. Broke this, broke the stairs."

Dr. Levin says police wanted to seize his neighbor's driver's license -- but Pennsylvania law doesn't allow it. Not until there's a conviction.

Dr. Kenneth Levin: "The whole police squad was very frustrated that they kept on releasing this guy to go home and drive drunk again. There should be some type of revocation of his license for some time."

So why hasn't the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law that allows administrative revocation of a license like most other states?

Rep. Mark Mustio, Moon Township: "I think it would be difficult to get passed. Because of the presumption of innocence, that type of thing."

That's exactly why Steve Welsh is opposed to it. And he has reason to feel otherwise.

Steve Welsh: "It was a tragedy, just that."

Six years ago, Steve was a passenger in a car that crashed here on Hulton Road alongside Oakmont Country Club. Another passenger, 20-year old Joann Hamill, was killed. The driver was drunk. Four months earlier, he got arrested for DUI. And yet, Welsh is still opposed to taking someone's license after a DUI arrest.

Steve Welsh: "I believe in innocent until proven guilty. Maybe it wouldn't have happened but maybe a lot of stuff wouldn't have happened."

Traci Vetovich, MADD: "Driving is a privilege not a right."

Traci Vetovich of Mothers Against Drunk Driving says MADD has been lobbying the Legislature for years for a law allowing police to confiscate a license when someone is arrested for DUI.

Western Pennsylvania's neighbors all have one. In Maryland, you lose your license for 45 days after the first DUI arrest. In Ohio, 90 days. West Virginia, six months. And New York seizes the license until the charges are decided by a judge or jury.

Traci Vetovich, MADD: "If somebody shoots somebody or stabs somebody, they don't give them the knife back or they don't give them the gun back."

Dr. Levin thinks about what could have happened that day last year when his drunk neighbor drove his car into Levin's house, getting his third DUI in a week.

Dr. Kenneth Levin: "What could have happened is he could have killed my kids. Everyone was doing what was within the law of Pennsylvania which was shown at that instance to be ridiculous."

You heard Rep. Mustio say he didn't think Pennsylvania's legislature would approve a law allowing police officers to revoke a driver's license for a DUI arrest. Several other legislators told us the same. So it appears Pennsylvania will carry on as one of nine states that allow this loophole in the law.

Part 2

Parsons reported that 53,000 people were caught driving drunk in Pennsylvania in 2008, with more than 500 people dying in related crashes.

(Video - Watch Part 2 Of Team 4's Report)

Robert Merryman is a six-time offender of driving with a suspended license due to a DUI and was arrested last month for possession of crack cocaine.

Court records show he has never served anything but house arrest for his suspended driving infractions despite being involved in several crashes.

Jim Parsons: "Robert, why do you keep driving with a suspended license?"

Robert Merryman: "I work, have to get to work."

Pa. law mandates 60 to 90 days in jail for anyone driving with a suspended license due to a DUI.

Officer Bernie Sestili, Penn Hills Police: "They just don't care. They keep driving. They do not care."

Jim Parsons: "And you don't see them go to jail?"

Officer Bernie Sestili: "No."

Sestili responded to an accident earlier this year involving Michael Benning. He noted on the citation that Benning had 13 convictions in seven years for driving with a suspended license due to a DUI. Benning did not go to jail.

District Judge Richard Zoller: "We don't have enough room in jail."

Zoller told Parsons that many cases he sees get plea bargained down to an offense that doesn't require even house arrest.

District Judge Richard Zoller: "What's their problem is they don't care, and our problem is we don't have enough room in jail. That is basically our problem, that's why we try to deal them down to 1543A's, which are $200 fines."

Plum Police Chief Frank Monaco offered an idea of how to get the attention of multi-offenders.

Chief Frank Monaco, Plum Police: "I'm not sure house arrest is that big of a deal when you can sit home and watch the "Price is Right" in your bathrobe and have a second cup of coffee. I'm not sure how big of a deal that is. If you tell me there's no room at the jail, there's a heck of a lot easier way of doing it -- seize their car. You take away a car, you'll get someone's attention."

Sestili said he gets frustrated by Pa. law, which says that no matter how many times DUI offenders get caught driving with a suspended license, it's just another citation.

Officer Bernie Sestili, Penn Hills Police: "The legislature could adopt, as other states have adopted, and make driving under suspension a misdemeanor offense, so it would be an indictable offense so we can arrest the individual and take them to jail. If there's not enough room in the jails, build another jail, don't let people out. The laws are there to put people behind bars for a reason, to protect society. If there are not enough jails, build another jail."