Anatomy of a DWI 'no-refusal weekend': how Harris County police and prosecutors are cooperating to curb DWIs.

• Author: Diepraam, Warren
• Position: Driving while intoxicated - Texas

TEXAS IS THE DEADLIEST STATE in the nation when it comes to DWI fatalities. Texas statutes designed to decrease the carnage on our roads have been effective to a degree, but many measures seem to have limited success in further curbing the number of deaths. Public perception of how these crimes should be prosecuted has fallen victim to the "CSI effect." Jurors now have a somewhat glamorous view of what evidence is needed in a DWI prosecution. And the refusal of many DWI suspects to provide a scientific or chemical sample to a law enforcement agency after a DWI arrest is a significant problem in ensuring justice in Texas courts.

Theoretically, every person stopped for DWI in Texas should provide a chemical sample to a law enforcement officer. All Texas drivers have impliedly consented to provide a sample of breath or blood when it is lawfully requested by a police officer making a DWI arrest. (1) However, roughly half of all suspects refuse to provide a sample. (2) For suspects, there are collateral consequences for refusing to provide a sample, such as administrative license suspensions, (3) and for prosecutors, there are evidentiary consequences, such as admissibility of the subject's refusal as evidence of guilt. (4) Although these consequences are evident, the number of DWI arrestees refusing to provide a chemical sample has remained at roughly 50 percent. (5)

As a result, some law enforcement agencies and prosecutors' offices have begun to use search warrants to obtain blood samples when suspects refuse to submit to a breath test. We in the Harris County DA's Office have formed a Vehicular Assault Team (VAT) to focus our energy on such cases, and earlier this year we established a new program, called "no-refusal weekends," to ensure the collection of a breath or blood sample from every person pulled over for suspected DWI, full prosecution of these offenders, and, more importantly, to decrease the number of fatalities over holidays.

In Harris County, there have been an inordinate number of traffic fatalities during certain holiday periods when alcohol consumption increases: Memorial Day, Halloween, Christmas, etc. This has been noted as a nationwide trend and is addressed by NHTSA and others in both advertising and public information campaigns and in high intensity patrol or checkpoint programs. The loss of life associated with these dates causes a tremendous amount of grief to survivors for the remainder of their lives. A holiday season that should otherwise be festive suddenly becomes a reminder of death and tragedy. To combat this circumstance, we created a plan of action for a "no-refusal weekend" over Memorial Day, and took our idea to Chuck Rosenthal, our district attorney, who has been very supportive of our efforts to combat driving fatalities and who quickly gave us approval to proceed.

Due to the overwhelming number of DWI cases in...