Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 21, 1993 TAG: 9310210163
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Stacey Lee Hann, 26, got behind the wheel and, within two months, was picked up again for drunken driving.
The case is an illustration of how problems with Virginia's record-keeping system can fail to keep dangerous drivers off the road.
"This is a worst-case scenario," said Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King.
"When you look at what [the Department of Motor Vehicles] has to do to keep these records . . . it's the opportunity for Murphy's Law to come into play."
Under state law, Hann should have been declared a dangerous driver, or "habitual offender," after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in February 1992.
Court records from 1991 show that Hann was a disaster waiting to happen:
On March 19, Hann was arrested on Williamson Road in Roanoke for driving with a blood-alcohol content twice the legal limit for intoxication. He received a suspended sentence and was placed in a program for first-time offenders.
On April 14 - less than a week after his court appearance on the first charge - Hann was arrested again for driving while intoxicated.
On June 29 - while awaiting trial on the second charge - Hann went to a Vinton bar where witnesses say he drank up to 15 beers, smoked marijuana and downed several shots of bourbon.
Hann left on his motorcycle with a friend, 24-year-old Mildred "Mickey" Smith - riding on back. Hann smashed into a telephone pole at Walnut Avenue and Eighth Street in Vinton. Smith died a few hours later.
He was convicted of the second drunken-driving offense in July 1991 and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in February 1992.
The manslaughter conviction, combined with the two drunken-driving convictions, should have set the wheels in motion for the DMV to declare Hann a habitual offender and revoke his license for up to 10 years.
But Hann slipped through the cracks because an employee in the Roanoke County Circuit Court clerk's office forgot to notify the DMV of the manslaughter conviction. So Hann was able to get his license restored this year.
Breakdowns in communication between the courts and the DMV is only one way dangerous drivers stay on the roads.
Of 14,316 people DMV certified as potentially dangerous drivers in 1992, only 3,248 were declared habitual offenders by Virginia judges.
No one know knows for sure what happened to the other 11,000.
The DMV has trouble tracking down drivers who move and leave no forwarding address, so local prosecutors cannot proceed with the judicial process of having them declared habitual offenders.
After Hann got his license back, it did not take him long to find trouble again.
On May 27, he was arrested for drunken driving after his car was seen weaving on Virginia 419 in Salem. He later pleaded guilty.
Last week, Hann was ordered to serve two years of a three-year sentence suspended from the involuntary-manslaughter conviction.
Hann said in court that he had learned his lesson and will never drink again.
Assistant Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney William Broadhurst was skeptical.
"I would have thought that when the girl on that motorcycle hit that pole, the sound of that would be something you would have remembered," Broadhurst said.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB