Baker bill aims to sideline repeat drunken-driving suspects
Gov. Charlie Baker is crafting a bill that would ensure repeat drunk drivers don’t get an easier path back to the streets, just weeks after the state’s highest court called state law “ambiguous” and ruled that judges could no longer hold dangerous, third-offense drunk drivers without bail.
The legislation, due to be filed today, targets a single sentence in state law that lets prosecutors request a drunken-driving defendant be held prior to trial if “arrested and charged with ... a third or subsequent conviction for a violation.”
But, as the Supreme Judicial Court pointed out in a June 1 ruling, that language is contradictory. Being arrested or charged with a crime for the third time is “wholly distinct” from actually being convicted of one, it said. Calling the statute “ambiguous,” it ruled that it interprets the law to mean it’d take three prior convictions, not two, for a defendant to be held when charged again.
Baker’s bill seeks to change that. The brief legislation would strike three words from the statute —“conviction for a” — and would clarify what Baker aides say they believe was the intent of the language: to keep someone held on their third charged offense, not the fourth.
“We should resolve this ambiguity in favor of public safety, rather than in favor of recidivist drunk drivers,” Baker wrote in a letter to lawmakers. “This legislation is short, but its impact in potential saved lives cannot be measured.”
The issue surfaced in the case of a Pittsfield man who, with two operatingunder-the influence convictions already on his rap sheet, faced two more indictments in 2015 on OUI charges. Prosecutors sought to have him held.
But the move prompted a challenge by Timothy Dayton’s lawyer, who argued the language was unclear. Dayton ultimately pleaded guilty anyway, but the SJC still decided to take the case.
Baker aides say the bill has the backing of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Colleen Sheehey-Church, the group’s national president, said in a statement that lawmakers should “reform Massachusetts’ OUI law to hold all impaired drivers accountable for putting innocent lives at risk.”