6 DUI Convictions

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Loophole may let driver with 6 DUIs get license

 

By Angela Rozas

Tribune staff reporter

Published February 8, 2005

 

A Sugar Grove woman with six DUI convictions would be eligible for a new Illinois driver's license in 10 years, despite a recent state law barring drivers with four convictions from applying for licenses, state officials say.

 

That's because three convictions were in Wisconsin, where she had a driver's license, said Nathan Maddox, assistant general counsel for the Illinois secretary of state's office.

 

But the congressman who in 1998 drafted the tougher driving-under-the-influence restrictions for repeat offenders said the state is misinterpreting the law's intent, and that the woman should be banned for life from applying for a new license.

 

Jane Mueller, 41, was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison last month by a Kane County judge after she crashed her vehicle in June. Her daughter, who was 11 at the time, was permanently disabled in the accident. It was Mueller's third conviction for DUI in Illinois--the first two were in 1988. The three in Wisconsin occurred between 1997 and 2001.

 

Under the department's interpretation of the law, which went into effect in 1999, only the convictions with an Illinois driver's license count toward the lifetime ban. Mueller could be eligible to apply for a new license in 2015, said Beth Kaufman, spokeswoman for the department.

 

But Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.), who was a state representative in 1998 and drafted the four strikes DUI law, said the state's interpretation is "absurd."

 

"That's parsing the law to the Nth degree when you say that. That's silly," Johnson said Monday. "The bottom line is that if John Doe or Jane Doe driver goes out on the road, and gets four convictions, wherever they are, we're going to revoke their license for life."

 

Johnson said if the state is interpreting the law to mean that only convictions on Illinois licenses are applicable, then state lawmakers or the governor should return to the books and draft a new law closing that loophole.

 

"An individual who had X number of violations, wherever they may be, should not be able to drive. Period," he said. "Where the violations were is irrelevant to the underlying meaning of the law."

 

Mueller had a valid driver's license in Wisconsin before applying for a new license in Illinois, having served out a 2-year revocation for her third conviction there, Kaufman said. Wisconsin, like many other states, allows drivers to apply for new licenses as long as terms of their revocation were met and despite a number of DUI convictions.

 

Illinois used Mueller's valid Wisconsin license to determine she was legally able to get a new license here, Kaufman said. Department attorneys determined that Illinois cannot regulate drivers from other states, and that's why the Wisconsin convictions do not apply, she said.

 

There is no current mechanism or database for checking how many DUI convictions drivers have in other states, Kaufman said. States only have access to the Problem Driver Point System, which details a current suspension or revocation, not how many convictions a driver has received.

 

A new database is expected to start this fall for commercial driver's licenses, which will enable every state to check the drivers' backgrounds, but such a system has not been approved for non-commercial drivers. Even advocates of the database have said the technology would be extremely costly.

 

"Certainly if there was a national database that contained your actual driving record, we would encourage legislation that would allow us to look at that and determine if you're eligible for a license in Illinois," Maddox said. "But it just doesn't exist right now."

 

There is a way the Wisconsin infractions could count against Mueller. If she applies for a new license, she has to go through an administrative hearing, and the state could use the Wisconsin convictions against her overall driving record and refuse her a license, Maddox said.