Leadership of the 2002 Legislature called the DUI Initiative their top priority. They passed eight bills to make headway on a system that has let drunken drivers fall through the cracks when it comes to sentencing, community service and treatment. But as the dust has settled in the two weeks since the Legislature ended, there is great confusion about how the intent and application of HB18 got so far afield.

The confusion is based on the application of HB18, which was supposed to direct the court system to collect and maintain data necessary to allow sentencing enhancements decisions in DUI and reckless-driving offenses.

The most important of these will provide money to help state courts collect and store information that is absolutely essential for judges who hand down sentences. As it now stands, many jurisdictions do not accurately report DUI information. Some drunken drivers are treated as first-time offenders over and over again because they appear in different courtrooms in front of judges who have no access to information about previous convictions.

Tyler worked closely with the courts on the bill. He wanted to include in the statute 10 specific questions for the courts to ask. Those questions would include:

• Is the charge a second or subsequent DUI offense?

• Did the offender have a blood alcohol content of .16 or higher?

• Was substance-abuse treatment ordered?

The courts balked at including this information in the statute, on grounds it might be too limiting, but agreed to include the questions on a form when DUI information is put into the court system. Tyler assumed this information would be applicable to justice courts too, as more and more of the smaller courts move from paper files to electronic files between now and 2004.

Schwermer says that is not feasible.

By law, Schwermer and the administrative office of the court must report on implementation of this bill to the Legislature by July 31.

Tyler said he'll try to get to the bottom of this issue then.

"I thought we had it covered. You tell me now that we don't, so we've got to find a way to fix it," Tyler said.

Mary Phillips of Freeway Watch, a local organization that does DUI education and public policy, is furious.

"If it's technically not in the law, they should be responsible enough. . . . If it was the intent of the Governor's Council on Diving Under the Influence and the Legislature and the sponsor, then they should do the right thing and take care of this," Phillips said.

"I believe if the court wanted to make a record, they could keep a record," she said.

But Schwermer said that while state courts have a database in which to feed information, justice courts don't.

"We're telling him to make a place for them," Phillips said. "We're telling them to take care of this."