Courts to blame for DUIs?

Tired of apparent foot-dragging on the part of Utah's courts, a handful of lawmakers issued a verbal spanking to a spokesman for the state judicial system, urging quick action where possible to solve Utah's complicated DUI problem.

"The Legislature has moved forward, but we continue to run into the bureaucracy of the courts," Sen. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, told Rick Schwermer, assistant state court administrator, in a hearing Wednesday.

The courts have been "slow and inefficient" in trying to report all forms of DUI data, Hickman said.

In addition, lawmakers were clearly irritated by the mixed signals on the problem of incomplete, broken reporting systems that make DUI cases in Utah so difficult to properly charge and sentence.

"There seems to be a real discrepancy here," Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said to Schwermer.

Schwermer spoke to lawmakers shortly after Ron Gordon, new director of the Utah Sentencing Commission, said, "The biggest cry for help right now is in the area of data collection."

The committee listened to Gordon and others from county probation, MADD and state agencies who all spoke of a "data crisis."

"Then you come up here and say we're already taking care of it," Buttars said to Schwermer. "Now, which is right?"

Rep. Brent Parker, R-Wellsville, cautioned Buttars not to be so hard on the courts.

"I'm not going to apologize," Buttars said. "We've got people ending up dead."

Misunderstanding about HB18, which passed the 2002 legislative session, also has frustrated lawmakers trying to get to the bottom of DUI data problems. Sponsor Lamont Tyler, R-Salt Lake City, and others thought HB18 took a huge step toward collecting important DUI-related facts, such as the blood alcohol level of a DUI offender, and making the information accessible.

As it turns out, the state's justice court system, which hears half of the state's DUI cases, was not included in the bill. Now some justice courts won't have this information available and online until 2004.

"That's just not acceptable," Hickman told Schwermer. "My suggestion to you is that if this isn't accelerated, the Legislature will take it up in the next session."