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The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office’s arrest of a man on his seventh DWI charge last week sparked social media outrage.

The comments were directed at the criminal justice system, which somehow allowed 30-year-old Jessie Joseph III, previously arrested on six DWI charges – all in California – to find a way escape incarceration and pick up his seventh.

Joseph appears to be one of far too many in the state and country who have fallen through the cracks of an unorganized legal system which makes it difficult for agencies to track how many DWI arrests and convictions a particular individual has accrued.


Different agency-to-agency conviction standards, poor paperwork and lack of agency-to-agency cooperation and communication sometimes results in individuals who should be facing increased DWI penalties, instead see yet another first-offense charge – which of course carries lighter penalties.

A first offense in Louisiana carries a jail sentence of two days to six months, and a second DWI conviction carries a jail sentence of 30 days to six months. Compare greater DWI charges to the state of California, for example, where a third DWI conviction carries maximum of one year in California and five years in Louisiana and a fourth DWI conviction carries maximum of 16 month sentence in California and 30 years in Louisiana, and many repeat offenders are serving lighter sentences in other states. There are no penalties stiffer than a fourth DWI charge.

According to Lafourche Parish District Attorney Cam Morvant, when a person is arrested on a DWI charge in Lafourche Parish, his staff will conduct a national search for prior DWI charges and convictions. A person must have been read all of his basic rights, as part of the Boykin process, in order for the Lafourche Parish District Attorney’s Office to be able to enhance the charge based on that conviction. Additionally, information proving it is the same individual must be included.


With no database, district attorney’s offices have to contact the respective clerk of court or criminal offices where the previous arrests were made in order to receive the information, and according to Morvant, sometimes the information necessary to enhance charges is not made available.

Then there are situations where prior DWI arrests don’t show up on different types of rap sheets, and rural agencies both in Louisiana and out-of-state not inputting information properly, and a person picked up on a DWI charge locally may have a previous arrest – and even conviction – go completely unnoticed.

That’s why public officials like Morvant and others are in favor of a statewide – or better yet – national registry of DWI arrests and convictions.


Former area state Sen. Reggie Dupre proposed a similar measure in 2008 entitled “Jade’s Law” for 9-year-old Jade Thomas, who was killed in lower Lafourche Parish by her intoxicated father James Thomas, who was driving. At the time of the accident, James Thomas had between eight and 12 previous DWI arrests – a number Morvant said he still hasn’t been able to hammer down.

The bill never made it to a vote in the 2008 regular session with financial concerns cited.

“If somebody gets into the realm of a fourth and beyond, they obviously need to be serving some penitentiary time. It’s safer for people because they can’t kill somebody if they’re in jail,” Dupre said, who added that he’d like to see similar legislation come forward in the near future.


Morvant agrees, however, he said that the Louisiana Supreme Court has sent forms to many state District Attorney’s and Clerk of Court’s offices, which will create an organized database between agencies.

“We get a file in that we’re sending them certain information that can be sent to a central database so that when we punch in a name, we’re going to get accurate information,” Morvant said of the high-tech system that is not mandatory but helpful for participating agencies. “Computers and everything are great but it’s all about what you input into them and s0 we’re trying to get to the point where everybody’s doing the same thing.”

Morvant said that his office has been inputting its information accurately even prior to the state-wide system, helping other agencies – and his own – when future incidents occur.


“If you get a DWI in Thibodaux, and you get another one in Chicago, if they run a rap sheet on you, they’re going to see that DWI you got in Thibodaux,” the district attorney said.

Morvant added that it’s a rule of his office to never negotiate down multiple DWI offenses.

But when other statewide and nationwide agencies don’t do their due diligence, multi-offenders may continue to get caught in local areas after possibly skating by in others, causing deserved frustration directed at the criminal justice system.


Lafourche sheriff’s deputies conduct a DWI checkpoint in this file photograph. Following the arrest of a Raceland man last week on his seventh DWI charge, Lafourche Parish District Attorney Cam Morvant is asking that a nationwide database be created to stop multiple drunk driving offenses.

 

COURTESY PHOTO