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EDITORIALS No plea deals for elevated DWI charge

   New York’s Legislature, realizing that motorists charged with driving while intoxicated often plead their misdemeanors down to a less-serious violation (e.g. driving with ability impaired), passed a new law last year targeting drunken drivers with especially high blood-alcohol levels — levels indicative of a chronic problem as opposed to a one-time mistake.
   Coincidentally Sunday morning, two prominent area men — a former congressman and the head of the Saratoga Economic Development Corp. — were charged with the same crime within a few hours of each other. Both blew at least 0.18 (percent blood-alcohol content) on their respective chemical tests, more than double the legal limit for DWI and the threshold for the new aggravated DWI charge. It will now be interesting to see how well the new law holds up in court, because even on a fi rst offense it is supposed to prevent pleabargaining out of the misdemeanor class, and allows for such stiff penalties as a year in jail, a year’s license suspension and fines of up to $2,500.
   Still, a DMV spokesman said yesterday that plea bargains to reduce the charges to DWAI are permissible — if both the district attorney prosecuting the case and the judge agree. They shouldn’t, inasmuch as these aren’t first offenses, either for former Rep. John Sweeney or the SEDC’s Kenneth Green.
   And in Sweeney’s case there is some indication of persistent alcohol abuse: He had a DWAI in 1978. In 2001, he drove his Jeep into a utility pole — later admitting that he’d had something to drink, though he wasn’t charged. In April 2006, Union College students reported seeing him drunk at a fraternity party. And alcohol appears to have been a factor in the breakup of his marriage.
   Clever lawyers — and Sweeney, at least, has one of the cleverest — always seem to get their clients breaks in these kinds of cases, but that clearly wouldn’t be in the public’s interest here. It mightn’t even be in the long-term interest of the accused if it encourages him to behave the way he’s used to behaving, and break the law again.

  


  
  
  

Perhaps they should get the same punishment as the rest of us....but isn't it a punishment also to have your mug shot and entire life in every media outlet out there? Your life is under a public microscope. I'll tell ya one thing, I would never be part of the political arena. Not on your life.