Operation Sober Highways

LIBERTY, December 13, 2006 - The offense of driving while intoxicated takes or ruins the life of more citizens than any other crime.  Like some contagious virus, DWI has spread to every city, town, and village in this country.  It is estimated that 1in 3 Americans in their lifetime will be affected by an impaired driver.  Nearly 42,000 people die in motor vehicle crashes each year, and about 16,000 of these are related to impaired driving.  Every day of the year, impaired driving crashes account for 1 death every 33 minutes and 1 person injured every 2 minutes.  DWI has killed more than twice as many Americans in the 1900’s than the total number of Americans killed in every war this country has fought since its creation.  DWI is a crime that chooses the sex, age, and number of its victims at complete random.  The results of DWI are bloodshed, countless tears, dashed hopes, shattered dreams, and broken and dead bodies.  The law enforcement agencies of our area strongly believe that it is well past time to put a stop to this carnage.  Accordingly, Operation Sober Highways is born. 

Although the law enforcement agencies of our communities have always taken DWI offenses very seriously, we have decided to redouble our efforts to efficiently apprehend and to successfully prosecute those individuals who insist upon driving while intoxicated.  Most DWI cases do not involve “falling-down drunks” who have stumbled from their cars and give breath samples that register at over twice the legal limit.  Instead, most cases – if they include bad driving from the defendant at all, involve a driver weaving within a lane, and law enforcement stops during which a defendant performs a limited number of field sobriety tests whose methods are often hard to follow and whose scoring is an easy target for defense cross-examination.  Prosecutors who try DWI cases will most likely be trying cases where as long as 2 hours have passed between when the suspect was driving and when he appears on a videotape at the jail or police station.  On that tape the DWI suspect often does not sway, does not slur his speech and wants to talk to an attorney before he decides to give a breath sample (although he has no legal right to do so).  Although these drivers may not be “falling-down drunk,” they are nevertheless intoxicated and they are in sole control of thousands of pounds of deadly steel moving in many instances at over 90 feet per second (sixty miles per hour).  Although Texas law requires drivers suspected of DWI to submit a blood or breath sample for testing upon request by a peace officer, almost 50 per cent of those drivers refuse to comply with that law and do not submit a blood or breath sample for testing.  In other words, although Texas law requires DWI suspects to submit a blood or breath sample for testing, the only consequence of such a refusal is a longer driver’s license suspension.  A refusal to submit a blood or breath sample for testing by a suspected DWI driver is not even a violation of our criminal laws and such a refusal has very little consequence.  Texas law provides that a person can only be compelled to give a blood sample and that is in only one very limited situation.  That situation only arises after an accident has taken place and a peace officer reasonably believes at the time of the arrest of the suspected DWI driver that death or serious bodily could occur as a result of the accident.  Accordingly, a serious accident involving a DWI driver must occur before our laws require a mandatory blood sample for testing.  We in the law enforcement community believe that this is unacceptable and Operation Sober Highways is born. 

Fortunately, our appellate courts have recently held that there is a remedy available to law enforcement when a DWI suspect refuses to submit a blood or breath sample for testing upon request by a law enforcement officer.  That remedy is an evidentiary blood search warrant.  Although the securing of such an evidentiary blood search warrant is a complex and time-consuming endeavor, the team members of Operation Sober Highways are committed to utilizing this additional weapon in their arsenal which they use in the war against DWI.

In a recent organizational meeting of Operation Sober Highways, the team members put the finishing touches on the search warrant forms and supporting documents which are needed to institute a comprehensive evidentiary blood search warrant program for DWI offenders who refuse to submit a blood or breath sample as requested.  It was the consensus of all team members that the upcoming Christmas season and the New Year’s holidays were appropriate times to begin this increased emphasis to apprehend and successfully prosecute DWI offenders.  Regrettably, despite the best efforts of area law enforcement agencies, the holiday season is a deadly season as a result of the actions of those who drink and drive. 

Locally, only our district judges or our county court at law judge may sign and authorize evidentiary search warrants.  Since most DWI’s occur during the evening or very early morning hours and since an evidentiary blood search warrant must be secured as quickly as possible in order to obtain reliable results, the initiation of this program requires the cooperation of our two district judges, Judge Chap Cain and Judge C.T. “Rusty” Hight, and County Court at Law Judge Don Taylor.  This program will require law enforcement officers to often contact these judges in the middle of the night at their homes in order to timely secure an evidentiary blood search warrant.  All three of these men have graciously agreed to cooperate and to review a request for a search warrant at any time, day or night.  This program also requires the cooperation of our local hospital emergency rooms.  Area hospitals have been contacted and they have voiced no objection whatsoever to assisting in any way possible.  Last but certainly not least, the men and women in law enforcement who patrol our streets and roadways 24 hours a day will be providing a major commitment of their time and effort while instituting the evidentiary blood search warrant program.  We are all convinced that the efforts and cooperation of everyone involved will certainly be worth the considerable effort.  The Office of District Attorney Mike Little is providing the services of the D.A. and/or one of his assistant district attorneys at all times in order to assist area law enforcement officers by providing legal advice as well as assisting in the preparation and securing of evidentiary blood search warrants.  D.A. Mike Little and at least one of his assistant district attorneys will be on call by pager and cell phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 

The current team members of Operation Sober Highways are:  Cleveland Police Department, Constable Tim Allison Precinct #1, Constable Mike Parrish Precinct #2, Constable Danny Frankum Precinct #3, Constable Royce Wheeler Precinct #6, Daisetta Police Department, Dayton Police Department, Liberty County Sheriff’s Department, Liberty Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol, the Office of County Attorney Jack Hartel, and the Office of District Attorney Mike Little.

Texas Department of Public Safety Sergeant Charles Havard, Jr., supervisor of the Highway Patrol in Liberty County stated, “We are very proud to be a team member of Operation Sober Highways.  I truly believe that the evidentiary blood search warrant program is a valuable asset and will be a very effective tool in the apprehension and successful prosecution of impaired drivers.”

Cleveland Police Chief Ike Hines stated, “We urge all citizens to be on the look out for drunk drivers and to call law enforcement to report them.  Operation Sober Highways will do the rest.  I believe this team effort against DWI will save lives.”

District Attorney Mike Little stated, “It’s really very simple.  We are all just tired of the death and destruction on our highways because people insist upon driving while they are impaired.  We want to publicly urge those who are drinking or impaired in some way to simply not get behind  the wheel of a motor vehicle.  But if they do, we are going to do everything legally possible to catch them and arrest them.  If they refuse to comply with an officer’s request to submit a blood or breath sample for testing, we are not going to stop there.  We are going to do the necessary paperwork in order to request an evidentiary blood search warrant from one of our judges.  That blood will then be tested by a laboratory and we will be able to determine the exact blood alcohol content of that individual.  Those results are very compelling evidence in the courtroom.  The days of trying to beat a DWI charge by refusing to submit a blood or breath sample are over.  Operation Sober Highways has begun.”

Participants in Operation Sober Highways are from left to right: Sergeant Gary Martin of the Liberty Police Department, Detective Kenneth Taylor of the Liberty Police Department, 1st Assistant County Attorney Mark Beausoleil, Captain Chip Fairchild of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department, Constable Precinct 6 Royce Wheeler, Liberty County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Don Neyland, Sergeant John Coleman of the Dayton Police Department, Trooper Sean Cheshire of the Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol, Deputy Constable Precinct 3 Rockie Templeton, Cleveland Police Chief Ike Hines, Captain James Carson of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department, Acting Liberty Police Chief Ricky Skarpa, Precinct 2 Deputy Constable Barbie Skarpa, Daisetta Police Chief Leslie Hulsey, Precinct 6 Deputy Constable Sergeant Ralph Fuller, District Attorney Mike Little, Dayton Police Chief Pete Douzat, Liberty County Assistant District Attorney Ragis Fontenot, and Constable Precinct 2 Mike Parrish.

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