Noteworthy News Articles on Mental Health Topics, September 23-26, 2000

Man Who Killed While on Prescription Drug Sues Drug Maker
Brian Witte, Associated Press, 9/23/2000

BISMARCK, N.D.--A man acquitted of killing his infant daughter after taking a prescription drug that he says put him in a psychotic state is suing the drug's maker to recover medical, legal and funeral expenses. Ryan Ehlis, 26, of Grand Forks, had been taking Adderall, designed to improve mental concentration, when he shot 5-day-old Tyra on Jan. 30, 1999.  Psychiatrists testified in court and the judge agreed that Ehlis lacked the capacity to understand what he was doing because of the drug. Its label warns that in very rare circumstances, it can cause ''psychotic episodes at recommended doses.'' Ehlis said that through the lawsuit he hopes to bring more attention to the danger of some prescription drugs. ''I think more needs to be known about these drugs in general,'' he said.
    The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, asks drug maker Shire Richwood Inc., of Florence, Ky., for more than $100,000 in damages, said Ehlis' attorney, Andy Vickery. Shire Richwood spokesman Stefan Antonsson declined comment on the lawsuit, but said: ''We are deeply saddened by the tragedy that took place in North Dakota.'' Medical experts and the drug's manufacturer say Adderall remains a safe and effective drug for controlling Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. Ehlis, diagnosed with ADHD as a child, was a student at the University of North Dakota when he started taking Adderall in January 1999 to help him manage the disorder. Weeks later, he fatally wounded his newborn, then shot himself in the abdomen. The drug is to be prescribed under close medical supervision. But Ehlis did not seek medical attention at the time of the killing, apparently because he did not realize he was having a psychotic event, Vickery said.

Sex Offenders Scaring N. J. Prison Town Long Accustomed to Other Criminals
Wayne Parry, Associated Press- 9/24/2000

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. (AP) - For as long as most people here can remember, murderers, muggers, drug dealers and other hardened criminals have been just down the road, locked behind bars at East Jersey State Prison. But in the township's Avenel section, sex offenders are another story. The decision by Gov. Christie Whitman's administration to locate a second detention facility for pedophiles and molesters in Woodbridge has infuriated many in this Middlesex County community, which contends that with one state prison and a separate detention center for sex offenders, it is already doing more than its share.
    Residents here say convicted sex offenders just scare them and their families more than other criminals. ''I have three little children living here,'' said Sheik Hosein, who lives about a block from the prison. ''Of course I'm scared. We're all worried. We can't sleep properly.'' Michael Baig, who lives several doors down, was more blunt. He said convicted sex offenders should be physically mutilated before being locked up. That way, children like his three grandkids would have less to fear. ''Children can't walk around, they can't do anything with these sickos in the neighborhood,'' he said. ''They're always in danger.''
    Lately, Woodbridge has been jittery about adult threats to its children. In June 1999, three families told police that a nighttime prowler had tried to break into the bedrooms of their sleeping children, touching off a panic among parents. Police increased patrols of the neighborhood and a home security company took to the streets to offer a deal on a system to residents, but no one was ever charged in connection with the incidents.
    The state plans to build a $43 million detention facility on the grounds of the prison, next to the existing Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center, New Jersey's only jail for convicted sex offenders. The new building is designed to house up to 300 civilly committed sex offenders who have served their jail sentences but are still deemed a danger to society. It's expected to open in about two years. Until then, offenders will continue to be housed at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center, as well as a temporary holding facility in Kearny, where local officials have been equally anxious to send the inmates elsewhere.
    Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski lashed out at Whitman for issuing an executive order this week requiring the 115 inmates at the Northern State Annex, a facility the state rents next to the Hudson County Jail, to stay there until the new Woodbridge detention center is complete. Likewise, Woodbridge Mayor James McGreevey, who narrowly lost to Whitman in the 1997 gubernatorial election and is considered the Democratic front-runner in next year's race, said his community already absorbs too much of the state's penal population.  Whitman said the decision to place the second facility in Woodbridge was due to the high level of security the prison grounds provide. ''In choosing this site, we are committing ourselves to providing the tightest security anywhere in the state,'' she said.

A Maryland County's High Tolerance
Katherine Shaver and David S. Fallis, Washington Post- 9/24/2000

Roland J. Crismond was drunk when he slammed head-on into Diana Murphy's Honda Civic on a two-lane road near Olney, killing her in front of her 15-year-old daughter. Facing five years in prison, Crismond didn't get a day in jail. Two weeks after his 1996 sentencing, a Montgomery County judge allowed him to leave town for a bowling tournament. Last summer, a Montgomery judge berated David Scott Bogan for driving drunk onto a sidewalk. The judge suspended every day of Bogan's one-year jail term but warned, "You're a potential killer." What the judge – and the prosecutor – did not know was that Bogan had killed a friend in a drunken driving crash 13 years before.
    Across Montgomery County, Maryland, drunken drivers who have been arrested time and again, who repeatedly violate probation and who have killed others remain on the roads. They benefit from legal loopholes and a court system that often resolves drunken driving arrests by reducing charges and giving light sentences, The Washington Post found in an analysis of Montgomery arrest and court records. Those with arrests in the double digits sometimes fared no worse than those on their third or fourth offense. On his 11th conviction, Walter Claude Brewer Jr., 53, of Rockville, was given 30 days in jail. For others, the more they drove drunk, the lighter their sentences became. On his fourth guilty plea, Kendall Leslie Lohman, 40, of Kensington, got one year in jail. On his eighth, he got none.
    Drivers so drunk that most people would be unconscious got suspended sentences. Police said Billy Joe Harland, 63, of Silver Spring, had the equivalent of more than a 12-pack of beer in his system when they stopped him in April 1998 – his third drunken driving arrest in nine months – but he left court with a suspended sentence and suspended fines. Nine of 10 drunken drivers who pleaded guilty served no time, and when they did, jail often meant a few weekends. The fourth time Dean Alan Sutherland, 35, of Rockville, pleaded guilty to drinking and driving, he was ordered to six weekends in jail. A judge allowed him to schedule the time so he would be out of jail for Thanksgiving weekend with his family. He was arrested for drunken driving again three months later. Sutherland and Lohman both declined to discuss their cases.
    Killing somebody while driving drunk did not always bring harsher treatment. One in five of those drivers got no jail time. The average sentence in fatality cases was less than one year. A one-year sentence usually amounted to three months in jail and six months on work release or home detention. "It scares the life out of me, the fact that I know what's out there," said Cornelius J. Vaughey, administrative judge for Montgomery County District Court, which handles drunken driving cases. "I know when you're on Wisconsin Avenue and the bars are emptying out in Bethesda that the police can only get one or two. My family is driving in this, too."
    To examine what happens after a drunken driving arrest in Maryland's largest jurisdiction, The Washington Post tracked a random sample of almost 500 of the 3,900 drunken driving cases filed in Montgomery District Court in 1997. Selecting that year ensured that cases had worked through the courts and offered a chance to determine how quickly drivers were arrested again. In nearly two of five cases, drivers had at least one previous or subsequent drunken driving arrest. The Post also reviewed the outcomes of 58 alcohol-related fatal crashes since 1984 in which a surviving driver was prosecuted for causing the wreck after drinking alcohol. Computerized probation records also were reviewed for 30,000 Montgomery County drunken driving cases referred to the state's Drinking Driver Monitor Program since 1986.
    Short of killing someone, drunken drivers in Maryland never face a felony, no matter how often they are arrested or how many people they injure. In most states, repeat violators risk a felony conviction, which leaves a criminal record that must be disclosed on certain applications and may cost people their voting and gun-ownership rights. In Maryland, drunken driving remains a misdemeanor, a lesser charge, and part of someone's traffic record, which makes the offense easier to conceal and less likely to follow a person across state lines. Montgomery police Officer John Romack, assigned to traffic and alcohol enforcement, compared drunken drivers to "little bombs out on the road waiting to go off." Montgomery police have caught drunken drivers swerving across two-lane roads, blowing through red lights and traveling the wrong way on highways in the dark. Police have found some passed out at red lights with their car engines running and others weaving down streets with young children in the back seats.
    In 1993, there were 2,800 arrests in Montgomery; by last year, there were 4,500. Drunken drivers arrested with blood alcohol levels of at least 0.10 are charged with driving while intoxicated. Those registering 0.07 to 0.09 are charged with driving under the influence. Before her Mazda Protege, with her three young children in back, was in an accident with a drunken driver in Rockville, Lisa Feathers, of Manassas, said she thought the courts would be "pretty harsh" on intoxicated motorists. "But this was a joke." A Montgomery County police officer found Mark Stephen Thompson, the driver of the truck in the collision, in a nearby parking lot, reeking of alcohol, according to the police report. Thompson told an officer he had drunk at least seven beers, and he had a bottle of vodka – three-quarters empty – in his pickup. Thompson was so drunk, the officer noted, that he didn't come close to walking a straight line and couldn't lift a leg to perform a balance test. On a breathalyzer, he registered a 0.31 blood alcohol level. Thompson, 44, of Rockville, was on probation for having driven drunk the year before. Three months into his probation, a probation officer had warned a Montgomery judge that Thompson had violated his sentence by drinking. The judge – acting on a recommendation from the prosecutor – had added a requirement that Thompson attend two meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous each week but had not revoked his probation or imposed a jail term. Within three months, in December 1998, Thompson was in the accident with Feathers. For that, he received a $150 fine, an order to complete alcohol treatment and one year in jail – 11 months of which were suspended. "We were very upset" with the sentence, Feathers said. "If it was his first offense, maybe that was okay. But this man had a history of drinking and driving." Thompson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
    Statewide, drunken drivers cost Maryland victims and taxpayers $1.4 billion in 1998, including emergency services and lost wages, according to the latest studies for the federal government by the National Public Services Research Institute in Landover. Last year, for Montgomery County alone, these costs reached at least $30.5 million, according to the institute. Accidents involving property damage or personal injury occurred in one of every 10 cases reviewed by The Post. Maryland law gives judges the power to impose fines ranging from $500 for a DUI to $1,000 for a DWI. The Post found that judges imposed fines averaging $165 for a DUI and $192 for a DWI. While other states, such as Virginia, imposed tougher punishments in recent years for repeat drunken drivers, Maryland has not. State lawmakers failed to act this spring on federal mandates to stiffen penalties for those arrested repeatedly and to ban open alcohol containers for everyone in a vehicle. As a result, the state might lose $7.5 million for federal road construction.
    Lawmakers who routinely oppose new anti-drunken driving legislation argue that the drop in alcohol-related fatalities nationally proves that drunken driving is on the wane. Throughout Maryland, according to the State Highway Administration, the number of fatalities has fluctuated in the past 10 years from a high of 293 in 1993 to a low of 178 in 1998. It was back up to 205 last year. But safety experts caution that the decline may be linked more to safer cars, seat belt laws, improved emergency room care and the over-21 drinking age. Even traffic congestion has helped, they say, causing crashes to occur at lower speeds. "You'd have to say things have gotten lots better, but 15,000 people dying per year [nationwide] is still unacceptable," said James Frank, a highway safety specialist for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "If everyone thinks the problem is solved, it isn't."
    In fact, it can take years for a drunken driver to be caught. James Clayton Keys said he drove drunk for almost 20 years before he was arrested three times within six months. The last came in February 1999 after he passed an undercover police officer on his motorcycle traveling 110 mph on Interstate 270 on his way home from bartending. That was enough to convince him to seek professional help that he said has kept him sober. Keys, 35, is on probation. In addition, he said a judge in Prince George's County has ordered him to serve 14 days in jail for driving drunk there. "I used to come in the next day at work, and they would say, 'Man, you were trashed last night!' And I'd say, 'Yeah, I slept the whole way home.' "The thing about us drunks," Keys said, "we consider it a personal star for us when we can make it home."

'Boom – We Were Hit'
In January 1995, Diana Murphy, who lived in Kent County, was recovering from surgery for lung cancer. The 42-year-old victim-witness coordinator for the Kent County state's attorney's office was finally feeling well enough to drive. She decided to visit her daughter, Justine, 15, who was a boarding student at Sandy Spring Friends School in eastern Montgomery County. Justine recalled the Mexican dinner she and her mother shared and how they were having so much fun they decided to drive to a movie. It was almost 6 p.m., already dark on a winter night, when they crested a hill on two-lane Norwood Road. "At the top of the hill, we saw headlights and then – boom – we were hit," Justine, now 21, said recently, as tears streamed down her face. "I screamed, and my mom screamed. She turned the car so he'd hit her and not me. We spun around and around." The collision looked more like a plane crash than a car wreck, a firefighter testified later. Justine blacked out and, when she came to, saw her mother's white shirt covered with blood. She held her mother's hand as she gave a final gasp. Justine, who had shards of the windshield in her mouth, nose and hair, doesn't remember how she got out of the car, only that she overheard a paramedic telling a colleague about her mother: "She's already dead." Her mother had been raising her and her sister, Margo, then 13, as a single parent, Justine said, so they were essentially left alone.
    Roland J. Crismond, convicted of killing Murphy after driving on the wrong side of the road while impaired, walked out of court a year later with no time in jail. His entire five-year prison sentence was suspended. Crismond's sentence amounted to a $500 fine, three years' probation and 350 hours of community service, which he performed at the American Legion in Wheaton. It was in another American Legion hall, prosecutors said, that Crismond had at least three beers before getting into his Thunderbird the night he hit the Murphys. His blood alcohol level measured about 0.10, according to prosecutors. "If I thought by incarcerating you I could save one life, would make a difference or save somebody from doing what you did on this evening, I would not hesitate to do it," Montgomery Circuit Court Judge William C. Miller told Crismond, according to an audiotape of the hearing. Noting that Crismond had undergone several surgeries, had broken legs and ribs and lost fingers in the fatal collision, the judge said, "You've punished yourself." Said Justine, "There was no way in my heart that I thought it was possible you could kill someone and not go to jail."
    Two weeks after Crismond was sentenced, court records show, the judge adjusted his probation so Crismond could travel to Canada for a bowling tournament. Miller, who has since retired from the bench, said he doesn't remember giving permission for the travel. But he said he did recall reasoning that Crismond had no prior drunken driving record, that the collision "wasn't intentional" and that the jury convicted him of manslaughter and driving under the influence. "He'd had more than he should have, but he wasn't intoxicated," Miller said. " . . . He's not somebody that needs to be locked up to protect society." Crismond, 56, of Olney, declined requests for an interview, saying, "I don't like the court system, and I don't agree with it."
    Susie Hayman, then state's attorney for Kent County, became legal guardian to Murphy's daughters. She said she'd heard the judge's reasoning before. "Probably half of the population out there – and I include myself in this group – can say, 'I've driven at least once when I shouldn't have,' so people don't want to judge other people," Hayman said. "Judges are human." Hayman said she knew from other lawyers that Montgomery was "notorious for leniency on drunk driving." But when Crismond was not jailed, she said, "I was just blown away."
    Judges continued to give Crismond the benefit of the doubt. In May 1997, Montgomery police, acting on tips from the public, arrested him for driving on a license that had been revoked after the crash that killed Murphy. Because the new arrest violated his probation in the manslaughter case, he faced having to serve the five-year sentence that had been suspended for the fatal crash. Instead, Crismond got 50 days. For driving on the revoked license, he also faced another year in jail. Now-retired Montgomery District Judge Stanley Klavan gave him six weeks of jail scheduled around Crismond's vacation time – three weeks one summer and three weeks the next – so Crismond could keep his job. Crismond never completed the six weeks. After he served his first three weeks, his attorney told the court his client had lost his printing job while jailed and needed time to find another. Montgomery District Judge Louis D. Harrington wiped away the rest of the sentence.
    Harrington said recently he doesn't remember Crismond. "These cases come in here in stacks of 25 apiece," Harrington said. "You don't have time to pore over each and every one to see what it was he was revoked for." Perhaps, Harrington said after reviewing the court file, he thought Crismond, an older man, would have trouble finding work. He already had been jailed on the probation violation, Harrington said, so "why beat him into the ground? . . . There is a certain sympathy factor." Justine Murphy, now a senior at a Baltimore college, said the sympathy is misplaced. "You really feel like my mom's life meant nothing," she said, "that my life doesn't mean anything."

Special Sentences
In Montgomery County, two of three drunken drivers who pleaded guilty persuaded a judge to give them the finding of probation before judgment, or PBJ. That meant a judge accepted a guilty plea and then closed the case, without a record of a conviction, if the driver completed an alcohol treatment or education program. Unlike a conviction, a PBJ leaves the driver's license free of points toward higher insurance rates or long-term suspension or revocation.
    As long as they keep a clean record, defendants can get the deal every five years. The arrangement is reserved, by law, for cases that the judge determines are in the "best interests" of the defendant and the public. But in Montgomery County, judges often agree to give probation before judgment even to drivers who seem more likely to drink and drive again.
    The drunken drivers granted probation before judgment in the Post analysis had an average blood alcohol level of 0.14 – double the legal limit – and one as high as 0.35. A high blood alcohol level is a red flag for a serious drinking problem, according to treatment specialists. Most weekend drinkers, depending on their body chemistry and tolerance, stumble and slur their words by 0.10, vomit by 0.20 and are losing consciousness by 0.30, experts say. Each drink elevates the blood alcohol level by about 0.02, according to police. At 0.14, "you've more than likely got a pretty good drinking problem, and you've most assuredly done this before many times," said Jim Wright, who analyzes drunken driving statistics for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "You just haven't gotten caught or gotten into a crash."
    Some were given the PBJ sentences even though they had other drunken driving arrests pending. Judges also awarded probation before judgment to drivers who police said had refused to cooperate on sobriety tests. And The Post found two cases in which drunken drivers who killed others escaped convictions with PBJs. Billy Joe Harland had refused to take a breath test and had three other drunken driving arrests when a Montgomery judge gave him probation before judgment. He remained legally eligible for PBJ because the earlier charges had been dropped or were pending after he hadn't shown up for court. Since then, Harland, who did not return telephone calls for comment, has been convicted of drunken driving three times, in Montgomery and Prince George's. His most recent conviction came last month when a Prince George's judge ordered him to jail for three months. He failed to show up for jail as ordered, and there is a warrant out for his arrest.

Spotty Background Checks
When David Scott Bogan went to court in July 1999 on a drunken driving charge, his attorney, Thomas Mooney, told the judge that Bogan did "in all candor to the court, have one prior, which was 13 years ago," according to an audiotape of the hearing. Bogan's attorney did not mention the details: Bogan had been sentenced to seven months for killing a 22-year-old friend and seriously injuring another passenger after zigzagging down Viers Mill Road at 90 mph in a 35 mph zone and slamming into a telephone pole in January 1986. He registered 0.11 on a breath test, according to court records. The prosecutor, if he knew, never told the judge about the fatality, either. He simply recited the facts of the pending case: Bogan, who registered 0.23 on a breath test, had driven onto a sidewalk and into a bus stop sign in downtown Silver Spring. The prosecutor said he was not seeking jail time. Until recently, prosecutors' failure to research drivers' records meant that many chronic offenders did not become eligible for stiffer penalties.
    John V. Moulden, president of the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, said problems can arise when drunken driving cases are assigned to "the most green" prosecutors. "Doing DWIs," Moulden said, "is the bottom of the barrel." Those inexperienced prosecutors are pitted against veteran defense attorneys, some who've made careers defending drunken drivers. Retired Montgomery Circuit Court Judge L. Leonard Ruben, who suspended all of Bogan's one-year jail sentence, said he was upset to learn recently of Bogan's earlier fatal crash. "If I'd have known about the fatality, he wouldn't have walked out of the courthouse," Ruben said. "I would have sent him to jail. We have to rely on what the state [prosecutor] or defense tells us. There's no way for us to know." Bogan did not respond to phone calls or written requests for comment. His case was one of three found by The Post in which prosecutors gave no indication they had researched a defendant's prior involvement in fatal alcohol-related crashes, according to audiotapes of the hearings. That left them to be sentenced as any other first- or second-offense drinking driver.
    Some jurisdictions outside Maryland devote a set of prosecutors and judges to drunken driving cases to target the most serious offenders. Montgomery County does not. District Court prosecutors handle up to 200 cases a week, from drunken driving to drug deals. Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler (D) said that since September 1999, he has devoted half of one employee's time to researching drunken drivers' records in preparation for hearings. Gansler said he believes his prosecutors who handle drunken driving cases, while the least experienced, are well trained and aren't to blame for judges giving lenient sentences. He said he didn't know why the judge wasn't told about Bogan's prior drunken driving fatality. "Clearly if our person knew someone was convicted of manslaughter, he would have said something,"
    Gansler said. Because the officer on the case also didn't mention the fatality in court, Gansler said, he can only speculate that it was not listed on Bogan's computerized record from the state Motor Vehicle Administration. Gansler conceded that a recent check shows the fatality on Bogan's record. However, he said the driving record now does not list Bogan's second drunken driving conviction. He said there must have been a "data entry problem." Mooney, Bogan's attorney, said he couldn't recall whether he had known about his client's fatal crash. While he said there has been a "tremendous increase" in prosecutors coming to court with defendants' driving records in hand, he added that some of his clients with prior convictions are still "slipping through."

Repeat Violators
For Montgomery police who specialize in catching drunken drivers, Walter Claude Brewer Jr. is a legend. At least 13 times, police have stopped Brewer, 53, of Rockville, and charged him with drunken driving. A computer printout of his driving record stretches almost 12 feet. He was convicted of leaving the scene of a 1973 accident in Rockville that police and witnesses said crushed the leg of one teenager and severely injured two others who were pushing a stalled car. Brewer told The Post recently that he had been drinking before the crash but did not recall how much. Once, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol twice within three hours. He's been involved in at least four other crashes after drinking alcohol, according to police and court records. In 1985, he was driving drunk, police said, when he ran a red light in Rockville and broadsided another car. The next year, a Montgomery County officer said, he watched as Brewer, his car littered with beer cans, drove onto a sidewalk near pedestrians at the Rockville Metro station. "A danger on the highway" is how a probation officer described Brewer to a judge in 1989.
    All told, Brewer has been convicted 11 times of driving while intoxicated. He said he's bounced in and out of halfway houses and jail, the longest stretch being about 12 months behind bars. In 1996, for his 11th conviction, which police said came after he struck a car that backed out in front of his, a judge gave Brewer 30 days in jail. He faced one year, but prosecutors agreed in a plea bargain to seek no more than one month. "That is unbelievable," said Rebecca Soubra, 41, of Gaithersburg, who was sitting in the stalled station wagon when it was struck from behind in 1973. "I had nightmares about that crash for years. . . . Why don't they take him off the road?" Brewer is awaiting trial again: Montgomery police say he was drunk and driving in February when he rammed a car stopped behind a bus on Gude Drive.
    Under Maryland law, a drunken driving conviction carries a maximum 60 days to one year in jail, depending on whether someone is convicted of driving under the influence or the more serious crime of driving while intoxicated. Repeat offenders can face up to three years in prison. But to most drunken drivers – who are held by police for only the time it takes to complete arrest paperwork – jail is an empty threat. The Post found drunken drivers typically did not go to jail until at least their third offense, and then for a few weekends. Some received no jail time on a fifth conviction. Other repeat offenders served a few days. Some drivers who killed others did not get that much.  "Nothing says that because you killed someone, you have to go to jail. That's the sad, sad part," said Etta Stewart Wandres, director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Montgomery County. Her 17-year-old son was killed on his prom night in 1988 when the van in which he was riding was struck by a drinking driver."That's the way judges look at it," she said. "This man didn't intentionally do this."
    Brewer, in a recent interview at the Montgomery courthouse after a hearing on his pending case, said he remembered few details of the 1973 crash. Both he and Gene E. Carter, of Daytona Beach, Fla., who was riding in the truck, told The Post that they were drinking at a bar shortly before the collision. Brewer was never charged with drunken driving, and both blamed darkness for the crash. Montgomery police Sgt. Brad Graham, who arrived minutes after the crash, said police suspected Brewer of drinking but because he ran from the crash had no way to test whether he was impaired. "I remember there were a couple of witnesses who stated they smelled alcoholic beverage" on Brewer, Graham said.
    Brewer eluded arrest for months and was later convicted of leaving the scene of an injury accident and given 60 days in jail. He said that over the years, he's avoided longer jail terms by refusing to cooperate with police, hiring good lawyers, and appealing the court decisions he doesn't like. "I used the system," he said. In court records, he has been evaluated as a "habitual binge drinker" who has "experienced blackouts hundreds of times." Judges have ordered him to treatment and therapy repeatedly. After the crash in February, police said he had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and smelled faintly of alcohol but refused a breath test. Brewer, a former auto mechanic now on disability, said he's an alcoholic but has not had a sip of alcohol in two years because of medication he takes.
    "All they are doing is slapping this man on the hand and setting him back out on the road," said Deborah Robey, 45, of Columbia, whose car was hit in the February crash. "How is this man still driving? He doesn't have a driver's license." Brewer conceded he has not had a valid license since he was young. "I had it long enough to sign it," he said. "Then they took it away."He said he's been caught repeatedly for driving without one, but "they give you a ticket, and you go on about your business." How did he get to court? Brewer fumbled in his pants pocket, pulled out a single car key and shrugged his shoulders. "I can't walk everywhere," he said.

DPS May Separate 'Behavior Problems'
Eric Hubler, Denver Post- 9/25/2000

"Every child, every day" is the Denver Public Schools' motto. But not everywhere. As part of its plan to boost standardized test scores, DPS intends to put children with "severe behavior problems" into a new elementary school or separate areas of existing schools. There would be two benefits, said Carla Santorno, interim chief of curriculum and instruction. The problem kids would get the attention they need. And everyone else could concentrate on learning.
    The idea stems from Senate Bill 133, the "safe schools" law, which was passed in the most recent legislative session. It gives teachers the right to expel unruly students from their classrooms for a day - or the rest of the term if it happens three times. Traditionally, expulsions have been the domain of principals and central-office administrators.  While DPS teachers haven't begun to use their new discipline tool in any widespread way, Santorno said, the law creates the possibility of large numbers of children getting shut out of their classes. "It means we're going to have to have some safety nets and some alternatives for students who are displaced on a consistent basis," she said.
    Like most school districts, DPS already has a variety of "alternative environments" for secondary students who can't stay in regular classrooms, whether because of bad behavior or other reasons such as dropping out temporarily to work. But this apparently is the first time any district in the state has considered segregating unruly elementary-school children, according to sources at several metro-area districts as well as the State Board of Education.  The safe-schools law says that unless a student is likely to harm someone, "expulsion should be the last step taken after several attempts to deal with the student who has discipline problems." Then it lays out several things districts can do for their expelled students. They can assist parents who want to try home schooling; send the child to a private, parochial or charter school; or start their own "pilot school."
    DPS apparently is the first district to consider the pilot school option, said Gully Stanford, the city's representative on the State Board of Education. He likes the idea. "I think what Denver is doing here is trying to provide for the need of these students. I would be very supportive of that effort," Stanford said. But Stanford said he's concerned about the financial strain of adding yet another program. He said the state has earmarked $2 million to help districts implement their safe schools strategies, but "$2 million will hardly begin to address the true need." Segregating children based on educational need is always a sensitive subject, said John Leslie, DPS's chief of student services. But the district's experiences at the secondary level suggest parents will support the concept, he said.
    Still, Pam Martinez, director of the Latino parents' group Padres Unidos, called the idea "totally backwards." She said she agrees there's a link between behavior and academic achievement, but DPS should recognize that good achievement leads to good behavior - not vice versa - and focus on teaching. "As opposed to siphoning all the kids off and sticking them somewhere, they should more seriously look at what are the components of success," Martinez said. "When kids start coming up to speed and being able to read, do math and science, they'll see a change in discipline." There also should be more counselors for students suffering from depression or other psychological ailments who can't afford private therapy, she said.
    Alternative schools for difficult children are "popping up like weeds" nationwide, said Matt Cohen, a Chicago lawyer who represents disabled children trying to get services in public schools. Cohen, immediate past president of the national association Children and Adults With Attention Deficit Disorders, said school districts often bypass the procedures for determining whether children have ADD and put them into alternative schools that can't help them.  "The question is, has the public school done all that it can to develop intervention strategies to allow the children to remain in the regular schools before consideration is given for movement to a special school?" Cohen said. "While we believe there are circumstances where transfer may be indicated, we are always concerned that that's used as a first response rather than as a last resort."

Exercise May Help Fight Depression
   Ira Dreyfuss, Associated Press- 9/24/2000

WASHINGTON –– Exercise works at least as well as a popular prescription drug in treating clinical depression and keeping the condition from returning, researchers say. Scientists at Duke University Medical Center tested exercise against Zoloft, and found the ability of either – or a combination of the two – to reduce or eliminate symptoms were about the same. But they found exercise seemed to do a better job of keeping symptoms from coming back after the depression lifted. "The present findings suggest that a modest exercise program ... is an effective, robust treatment for patients with major depression," said the report in the October issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. The findings go well beyond the idea that exercise fights the blues. "It was not just that they had a bad day – or a bad several days," said James A. Blumenthal, lead researcher.
    The patients in this study and others in a continuing series of experiments at Duke had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Their loss of pleasure, and feelings of worthlessness and guilt, had to exist for at least two weeks, Blumenthal said. The severity of their symptoms was generally mild to moderate, but in some cases was severe, he said. The October report followed earlier research in which 156 adult volunteers had taken part in a four-month comparison of exercise, Zoloft or a combination. The exercise primarily consisted of brisk walking, stationary bike riding, or jogging for 30 minutes, plus a 10-minute warmup and 5-minute cooldown, 3 times a week. After four months, patients in all groups had comparable improvements, the researchers said. About 60 percent of the exercisers had vastly improved or had no symptoms, compared with about 66 percent of the medication group and 69 percent of the combination group. The new study was an attempt to see if the benefits continued after the earlier study ended. At this point, 10 months from the beginning of the project, researchers checked 133 of their old research subjects who had stuck with the program. Exercisers who had been in remission after 4 months were far less likely to see their depression return after 10 months, compared with people taking the drug or a combination therapy, the study found. Eight percent of exercisers saw symptoms come back, compared with 38 percent of those taking drugs and 31 percent getting both.
    It will take more research to discover why exercise should work better than prescription drug use. But it's possible that exercisers gained a sense of control over their lives that drug-takers could not match, Blumenthal said. It's also unclear why combination therapy did not work better than either alone, he said. How exercise could create the benefit is not known either, Blumenthal said. The once-popular idea that natural mood-enhancing chemicals called endorphins go up because of exercise is hard to prove because the experiment would require samples to be drawn from the central nervous system, he said. The usual method, taking endorphin levels from blood in the circulatory system, can be considered only a second-best way to find out, he said. Zoloft, made by Pfizer Inc., helps the body to regulate levels of another brain chemical, serotonin, which is also believed to affect mood.
    The studies do not prove exercise relieves depression, in part because the exercisers worked out in a group, so group dynamics may have played a role, Blumenthal said. A new study will attempt to find out, by comparing supervised group exercisers with people who were simply given an exercise plan and sent home, he said. The published findings may not apply to all depression patients, because the study worked with volunteers, Blumenthal said. Volunteers presumably would be more likely to stick with exercise than would patients who simply were told by their doctors to exercise, he said.
    "It sounds like very interesting work," said Dr. Robert Pohl of Wayne State University in Ohio, who was not connected with the Duke project. Still, it's possible some of the improvements in the Duke study came from patients' attempts to please the researchers, said Pohl, a psychiatry professor who treats patients with depression. And getting people to exercise is not easy. Most Americans, depressed or not, don't work out enough. "I always try to get my patients exercising, and I can't do it," he said.

One More For the Road: A County's High Tolerance
   David S. Fallis and Katherine Shaver, Washington Post- 9/25/2000

It was 4 a.m. on a Friday in March, and Michael Coleman Dowdy Sr. was driving north on New Hampshire Avenue--heading right into his 15th drunken driving arrest. Near Route 108 in eastern Montgomery County, Dowdy's white van caught Officer Shanda Berry's attention when, she said, it swerved across the center line into oncoming traffic. When the officer stopped Dowdy and asked him to submit to a breath test, he refused. With his arrest, Dowdy returned to a system in Montgomery County in which police, prosecutors, judges and probation officers have tried since 1985 to stop him from driving drunk. It is a system that benefits chronic drunken drivers who quickly learn the legal maneuvers that allow them back on the roads with little punishment.
    In refusing to take a breath test, Dowdy was aided by a loophole in Maryland law that does not penalize drivers who do not cooperate with police. Those refusals leave prosecutors without their best evidence. When Dowdy has gone to court, his attorney has often clinched a plea bargain for a lighter sentence. When facing sentencing, Dowdy has come to court with his own suggestion for a treatment plan, convincing judges he is a victim of alcoholism who needs therapy, not jail. When he has not attended court-ordered Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or has been arrested on new drunken driving charges while on probation, frustrated judges threaten him with long jail terms--but rarely impose them.
    Dowdy is an extreme case. But some county judges acknowledge that they regard drunken driving differently than other crimes. "It's a victimless crime unless they kill someone," said Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Paul H. Weinstein. "Have you ever known someone convicted of drunk driving? Sure you do. Kids who go to college do. Lawyers do. Judges do. We don't think of them as people who go in and rape someone or commit a robbery. I think society wants to help people who are addicted." Cornelius J. Vaughey, administrative judge for Montgomery's District Court, said: "Drunk drivers--I hate to say this--but they're more your next-door neighbor. . . . Everyone wants you to be a real [SOB] on these cases until it's them or their family or their friend."
    Drunken driving cases account for one-fourth of the criminal and serious traffic charges filed in the county's District Court, state records show. Judges and prosecutors clear thousands of cases through plea bargains or by imposing sentences a defendant is unlikely to appeal to another court, further tying up the system. "It's an absolute outrage that we are concerned about drunken driving out on the roads, but when we come to the courts we are concerned about case processing and clearing backlogs," said John V. Moulden, president of the National Commission Against Drunk Driving.
    An analysis of court cases by The Washington Post found that the push to resolve cases quickly undercut the spirit of drunken driving laws and allowed chronic violators to drive drunk again and again. Some drunken drivers on their fifth conviction avoided jail. The same is true for cases in which drunken drivers have killed. Several judges said they believe that living with the guilt is punishment enough, according to audio tapes of court hearings. "Officers take these people off the road to save people's lives," said Montgomery County police Capt. Thomas C. Didone, "only to find that they're doing it over and over again, and the person is just walking away." Didone used to run the unit that coordinates sobriety roadblocks. Like other officers, he can recite a list of drunken drivers he rearrested so often he knows them by name. He calls them his "frequent fliers." As Michael Tartamella, former owner of a Germantown alcohol and drug education counseling center, put it: "They say, 'My attorney got me off' or 'I've had five of these before, and I'm still walking around.' This is a macho thing for some people."

Refusing Breath Tests
Behind the flashing lights of a roadside patrol car, a police officer marches a driver through the paces: Stand on one foot. Walk the line. Take a deep breath and blow. Veteran drunken drivers know better. In most states, drivers who refuse to blow into an alcohol breath test machine or take roadside coordination tests can have that used against them in court. In some states, suspected drunken drivers can face an additional criminal charge for refusing the breath test. In Maryland, those who decline lose their licenses for at least 120 days, but they face no additional criminal penalty, and the law prohibits prosecutors from telling a judge or jury about the refusal. Most defense attorneys said they don't condone refusals, but some conceded that they tell their most frequent drunken driving clients not to give a breath sample. Losing a license for refusing to blow is no threat to chronic offenders because most already had their licenses taken away for drunken driving. Charges of driving on a suspended or revoked license, which alone can bring up to one year in jail, were often dropped in exchange for the defendant pleading guilty to drunken driving, The Post found.
    Without breath test results, it can be difficult for prosecutors to prove any drunken driving charge, and proving the stiffest charge can be nearly impossible, lawyers said. Driving while intoxicated--having a blood alcohol level of 0.10 or higher--can bring a maximum of one year in jail. Driving under the influence--with a blood alcohol level of 0.07 to 0.09--carries a maximum 60-day jail term. Penalties top out at three years for repeat convictions. "Without a breath test," said defense attorney Jonathan Bloom, "the state will usually drop it down to a DUI unless the guy is drop-dead drunk." Repeat drunken drivers have a particular advantage in not giving a breath test. Experts say most are hardened drinkers who have learned to compensate for the usual slurring and staggering that a coordination test detects. Some simply sit down next to their cars and refuse to move. "If you're a hard drinker, you're probably experienced enough to know not to take the breath tests or [roadside coordination] tests," said Dan Barnett, supervisor of the Montgomery District Court prosecutors. "And if you do take the [coordination] test, you're liable to do pretty well." Absent breath tests, the case becomes the officer's word against the driver's. Cases fall apart, or prosecutors are forced into more generous plea deals.

Court Maneuvers
Michael C. Dowdy Sr. said he hasn't had a valid driver's license for 13 years, which would have been after his seventh drunken driving arrest. He's been arrested eight times since. His longest jail sentence was 10 months--after a new conviction violated his probation in earlier cases, according to court records. When Dowdy went to court in 1997 for his two most recent convictions--his ninth and 10th--he faced more than three years in prison. But in a plea bargain, the prosecutor agreed to seek no more than 18 months in the county jail. Dowdy left court that day with orders to serve 12 weekends in jail and 18 months of home monitoring, to get treatment weekly and to attend AA meetings.
    Montgomery State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler (D), who took office one year later, said Montgomery prosecutors rely on plea bargains when a lack of witnesses or strong evidence might lead to a driver being cleared of all wrongdoing in a trial. In those agreements, he said, prosecutors may seek sentences below "what we really believe to be appropriate" because there's no use in asking for sentences judges won't give. "The plea bargains reflect the reality of what these judges are going to sentence people to," Gansler said. "It's not that our judges don't understand driving while drinking is a bad thing. We have pervasive, light sentences for any crime. They're just light on crime. . . . The Achilles' heel right now is at sentencing."
    At his sentencing in 1997, Dowdy stood before Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Paul A. McGuckian apologizing for the "relapse" of his "medical alcohol addiction," according to audiotapes of the hearing. This time, he had taken the breath test. He had been arrested while allegedly speeding with the equivalent of about 12 beers in his system, or a blood alcohol level of 0.25. Dowdy had come to court prepared. He had a signed letter from a Rockville monitoring firm that said he qualified for its private "Model Alcohol Program." He would get "an individualized approach" to his alcoholism, including "strict scrutiny" of his drinking and "medical treatment," the letter said.
    Drunken drivers often pay private companies to evaluate them. Then, they effectively fashion their own sentences by coming to court with a treatment plan already in place. Some judges said they are persuaded by drunken drivers who have already volunteered for--and usually started--treatment, even if its requirements are more lenient than the judge would have given. It's counterproductive to disrupt someone's alcohol treatment to put them in jail, judges said.
    Attorney David Driscoll said he likes to get his drunken driving clients help in addition to showing judges that the clients have taken some responsibility. "I tell [clients] I can't guarantee it will satisfy the judge," Driscoll said. "But if you don't, I can guarantee you'll be dealing with an unhappy judge. . . . A lot of it is giving the judge alternatives." Drunken drivers also are able to shop around for the most advantageous alcohol evaluation. Tartamella, the alcohol education counselor, said he found that many people whom he evaluated as problem drinkers never returned for the counseling. "They're probably going someplace else to get someone to say something different," Tartamella said. "That's a very common thing."
    Being classified by a treatment specialist as a "social drinker" rather than a "problem drinker" is important at sentencing. Judges generally give those deemed social drinkers six weekly meetings of lectures and videos; problem drinkers receive six months of weekly group counseling. Defense attorneys acknowledge that their clients can eventually learn the "correct" answers to questions routinely asked by independent evaluators, such as, "Have you ever blacked out after drinking?" Treatment centers, which usually do not have access to a defendant's confidential driving record, say they have few ways of knowing whether someone is telling the truth. "I did a very extensive interview with a client who had two DWIs," said Rosalind Goldfarb, owner of Circle Treatment Center in Gaithersburg. Later he told someone else, " 'I had nine more,' " she said. "That's how I know he lied," Goldfarb said with a chuckle. "They're very convincing."

Treating vs. Punishing
Unlike other defendants, chronic drunken drivers are often seen as alcoholics relapsing from a disease rather than as criminals jeopardizing public safety. Judges said they usually forgo imposing jail time if they believe treatment will help someone stop drinking. Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Nelson W. Rupp Jr., who has a reputation for handing out tough sentences, said he believes in locking someone up for a second drunken driving offense. For a second one, he said, he usually recommends them to the county's halfway house, where they get treatment at night and work during the day. After that, he said, they will get jail. "Alcoholism is a disease, and you can't just lock up someone with a disease," Rupp said. "You treat them. Treatment can include punishment. I think here we have a view towards how do we address the overall picture?"
    Said Weinstein, the Circuit Court's administrative judge: "I think you just find some judges who can't send people to jail for DWI. There are judges who want to save people from their souls, from their drinking. They think it's better if they can get the person into AA." Montgomery District Court Judge Louis D. Harrington said he does not recall ever, in 18 years as a judge, sending someone to state prison for drunken driving, regardless of how many convictions they have. "I can't send someone to the state system," Harrington said. "In this county, there's a constant hope that someone can be rehabilitated." Still, Harrington said, "there comes a time at which you cross over between trying to rehabilitate people and protecting the public. At Number 4, I have to start worrying about protecting the public."
    Lawyers play into that. Tom Mooney, a Silver Spring defense attorney, recalled defending a client on his 16th drunken driving arrest. Mooney said he told a judge about the man's Vietnam War medals and had a biochemist testify that he had a "genetic predisposition" to alcoholism. The driver got six months in the county's halfway house. The public, Mooney said, "would be shocked, appalled and outraged, and they should be. That's probably why people hate lawyers. I did my job, and I did it fairly well with the circumstances. But you second-guess yourself, because you're a citizen, too."
    Judges said sentencing drunken drivers poses a special dilemma. Long-term inpatient treatment is expensive for the driver, and people come to court with jobs and families to support. Jail, judges said, could end up doing more damage if the drunken drivers do not get treatment and leave jail unemployed or homeless--problems that could send them back to drinking. When McGuckian, who sentenced Dowdy to 12 weekends in jail and more treatment on his 10th conviction, heard that Dowdy had been charged with drunken driving again, the judge cringed. "What do you do? What can you do?" McGuckian said. "The issue was, what's the best prospect for treating this guy so he won't continue to do it? Putting him in jail keeps him off the street, but is it better than this plan? That's a debatable issue."
    Said retired Montgomery Circuit Court Judge L. Leonard Ruben, who fills in at traffic court: "As a judge, you don't know what to do" with drivers who are brought to court repeatedly. "If you could dream up some better options, we'd listen to them." Ruben said he believes some chronic drunken drivers only hit "rock bottom" and take treatment seriously if they first go to jail. He said judges are "in a tough situation" when they believe a drunken driver needs jail to get the message but the prosecutor already has agreed not to seek jail time.
    Dowdy, who runs a small construction business, has been diagnosed as an alcoholic, according to court records. But in an interview, he said he considers himself a social drinker, despite what he has told judges in tape-recorded hearings. As for judges' orders to get treatment, Dowdy said, "I don't think those programs work for anybody unless they really want to. A lot of people only do it to stay out of jail." He said he drinks beer "occasionally." Despite his 15 drunken driving arrests that The Post found--"You didn't find them all," he said--he doesn't consider himself a danger on the roads because he has never hit anyone. He said police target him, and his last arrest was a "fluke." But he said his experiences have led him to change his ways. Now, if he goes out and drinks, he said, he has a designated driver or calls a friend who owns a towing company and has his car hauled home on a flatbed truck. "It's not in my interest to go out and get bombed and drive," he said, "because you take a risk of killing someone."

Probation
   Judges who order drunken drivers to attend treatment rather than go to jail have usually sentenced the person to probation. But that doesn't mean they're being closely watched. In almost one-fifth of cases in which someone was found guilty, defendants--including several with multiple convictions--received unsupervised probation, according to The Post's analysis. That meant they essentially monitored themselves. Those sentenced to supervised probation often got little more than five to 10 minutes of "supervision" per month.
    When Maryland state lawmakers formed a special probation unit for drunken drivers in 1983, they intended that probation officers see their clients weekly to keep close tabs on their sobriety, probation officials said. But with Montgomery probation officers each handling 230--and up to 700--cases, check-ins have dwindled to once a month, said Flo P. Smith, supervisor for Montgomery's Drinking Driver Monitor Program. The biggest deterrent in the monitoring program isn't supervision but the inconvenience, said defense attorney Philip Armstrong. "It's just a pain." Drunken drivers usually meet with a probation officer just long enough to blow into an alcohol breath test machine and present proof they're working and have attended treatment or AA meetings. Offenders can plan for the regularly scheduled breath tests, which detect alcohol drunk only in the hours leading up to it. "If you come see me the third Thursday of every month, you can pretty much start drinking that Friday and pretty much stay drunk the rest of the month," Smith said.
    "Judges don't have time to deal with these cases. They send them out into the probation world and hope the person is going to be compliant," said Darrel L. Longest, a deputy state's attorney in Montgomery until 1976. He now runs a monitoring company for devices that disable drunken drivers' vehicles until they pass a breath test. During probation, some defendants are required to attend talks hosted by Mothers Against Drunk Driving that often feature family members of those killed by drunken drivers. Many also must attend an alcohol education course, akin to a high school health class, where they listen to lectures and watch videos about the physical effects of alcohol and other drugs. Some people sleep through the classes.
    At one victim-impact panel, police questioned two women in the crowd who appeared to have been drinking. The women were glassy-eyed, smelled of alcohol and were swaying on their feet. They both denied drinking but refused to take a breath test. Police told them to leave, following them outside to make sure they did not drive. When probation officers notified judges that drunken drivers skipped treatment, ignored fines or tested positive for alcohol, not much happened, The Post found. Judges typically didn't hear about the violations for months. In the cases reviewed, 90 percent of those who violated probation simply had their cases closed as "unsatisfactory," got more probation or had their record reflect a conviction that they otherwise would have avoided. Most drunken drivers who had suspended jail sentences did not go to jail for violating probation.
    Timothy Howard Hurley, of Gaithersburg, was granted a probation-before-judgment sentence after pleading guilty to drunken driving in 1989, according to court testimony. PBJ, considered a break for first-timers, allows a judge to accept a guilty plea but postpone a conviction. If an offender completes probation, the case is closed and no conviction is recorded, which means the driver can legitimately claim to have never been convicted of drunken driving. Hurley served six months of unsupervised probation on his first offense, according to sentencing records. Six years later, prosecutors said Hurley, then 24, was driving drunk when he ran a flashing red light at Wootton Parkway and Rockville Pike. His vehicle struck Bill Bockhold's 1991 Mitsubishi Galant, killing the 40-year-old as he drove through the 4:30 a.m. darkness to his job repairing radiology equipment at Georgetown University Hospital.
    Bockhold, a widower, left two sons, ages 12 and 14. The police officers sent to their door asked one boy whether his mother was home. The child said his mother was dead. The officers, realizing the boys were now orphaned, were so upset that they had to return to their cars to compose themselves before they could tell the boys of their father's death, a prosecutor said in court. Bockhold's family said they urged Montgomery Circuit Court Judge S. Michael Pincus to sentence Hurley to treatment and community service rather than jail. They said they wanted to prevent another such collision by ensuring that Hurley stop drinking.
    Pincus sentenced Hurley to two weekends in jail, a $1,750 fine, a 28-day treatment program and 350 hours of volunteer work. Court records show he didn't serve the two weekends in jail because he got credit for the time served in the treatment program. Ten months after his sentencing, Hurley's probation officer notified the judge that Hurley ignored most of his sentence. He had skipped treatment sessions, not paid his fine, failed to complete community service or attend Alcoholics Anonymous and never went to the MADD victim-impact session. Pincus sentenced Hurley to 18 months added probation and jail for six months, which ended up being two weeks in jail and the rest on work release and home detention. One and a half years later, prosecutors were back in court telling the judge that Hurley had again "snubbed his nose" at probation. This time, Pincus didn't have Hurley locked up. Instead he gave him another two years of probation.
    Joe Maddox, who became guardian to Bockhold's two sons, said prosecutors never told him or Bockhold's family that Hurley had shunned the rehabilitative sentence the family had requested. "There should have been a mandatory, 'Zap--you're in prison for 10 years,' " Maddox said. " . . . The boys don't have a second chance to get their dad back." Pincus said recently that he couldn't recall why he did not return Hurley to jail on his second probation violation. But in reviewing the court file, the judge noted a letter he received from Hurley's social worker. The letter said Hurley had "strength of conscience" and was violating his probation because he was "self-destructive" over "ongoing guilt" from Bockhold's death. Pincus said he believed Hurley would stop drinking and driving but only if he stayed out of jail and in therapy. The judge said he hasn't been notified of any probation violations since. "I suspect I was convinced he could be rehabilitated and would comply with his conditions of probation," the judge said. "It looks like I was correct in that." Hurley declined requests for an interview. "It's frustrating and disappointing that they just extended his probation," Maddox said. "Yippee-ky-yay. That's kind of a joke."

A 16-Year Docket
A snapshot of Michael Coleman Dowdy Sr.'s arrests:
1984: First drunken driving arrest. Pleads guilty in June 1985 to DWI. Sentenced to probation before judgment, $200 fine and an alcohol education program. Violates probation three times. Sentenced first time to one more year probation, second time to a suspended one-year jail sentence and five years probation, including four Alcoholics Anonymous meetings per week. On third violation, probation officer says Dowdy did not complete detox program, had missed probation appointments in six months and had not attended AA meetings. Judge says he doesn't want to "complicate" matters because Dowdy had been sentenced the day before to 10 months in jail for violating probation in another drunken driving case. Judge suspends any sentence and closes case as "unsatisfactory."
May 1985: Second drunken driving arrest. Found not guilty almost two years later.
June 1985: Third drunken driving arrest. All charges dropped one year later. Prosecutor says officer did not see him driving car.
October 1985: Fourth drunken driving arrest. Prosecutors drop the charge one year later.
January 1986: Fifth drunken driving arrest. Pleads guilty to DUI. Sentencing records are incomplete, but he received a $500 fine, which was suspended. Later, sentenced to 60 days in jail for violating probation.
March 1986: Sixth drunken driving arrest. Pleads guilty to DUI and sentenced to one year of jail, with all suspended but 60 days. Later violates probation by getting new drunken driving arrest in Frederick County and by not reporting to probation officer in six months. Sentenced to 10 months in jail. Serves three months in jail and remainder in county's work-release halfway house.
July 1986: Seventh arrest, for attempting to drive under the influence of alcohol in Prince George's County. Sentenced to 60 days, all suspended. Later ordered to serve 15 days in jail for violating probation.
May 1987: Eighth arrest. Found guilty of DWI and driving on a suspended license. Sentenced to two years in jail, all suspended. Ordered to five years of supervised probation, including four AA meetings a week. Two years later, probation officer reports again that Dowdy failed to meet with his probation officer, had not consistently attended AA meetings and had been arrested once more on charges of drunken driving. Dowdy pleads guilty to violating probation. Judge suspends any sentence and closes case as "unsatisfactory."
September 1987: Ninth arrest. Found guilty of DUI. Receives 60 days of home detention and supervised probation.
October 1988: Tenth arrest, on charge of driving under the influence of drugs. Charge later dropped.
February 1990: Eleventh arrest, on drunken driving charge in Frederick County. Blood alcohol level measured 0.23 -- more than twice legal limit. Pleaded guilty to DWI and driving on a revoked license. Sentenced to 10 months to be served with preexisting 10-month sentence, plus treatment.
October 1990: Twelfth arrest. Pleads guilty to DWI. Sentenced to one year in jail -- suspended -- and one year supervised probation.
September 1996: Thirteenth arrest. Pleads guilty to DWI and driving on a revoked license. Sentenced to three years in jail, all but 12 weekends suspended. Also ordered to 18 months' home monitoring, AA at least three times per week and treatment once a week.
February 1997: Fourteenth arrest. Pleads guilty to DUI. Sentenced to 60 days in jail (all suspended) and three years' probation. Treatment and home monitoring requirement the same as above case.

Science Proves It: Restraining Your Emotions Is Not Very Smart
Sally Squires, Washington Post- 9/25/2000

Keeping a stiff upper lip during stressful situations can take an unexpected toll: It appears to interfere with the ability to think clearly during the event and to recall the details afterward. Suppressing emotions is a common, and often highly regarded, habit of modern life. "It's what we do when we're trying to hide ourselves from others," says Jane Richards, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. "It's like when you're interacting with a colleague who's getting on your nerves and you don't allow your feelings to be read on your face or shown through your body gestures or your tone of voice."
    But keeping a lid on emotions takes so much vigilance, according to a series of recent studies by Richards and James J. Gross of Stanford University, that it seriously drains brain power. "It's … lying to yourself about your emotions," Richards says. "You're still feeling them. You're still upset, but you're not going to show it. And that means you have a much harder time thinking clearly and remembering what happened." But the latest research suggests that people who can adjust and reappraise the situation as challenging, rather than threatening or uncomfortable, "look, feel and perform better," Richards says. What also helps is to take on the demeanor of a more disinterested party who wouldn't feel upset in the same situation.
    Avoiding suppression of emotions frees brain cells to perform other functions, such as thinking. That, in turn, "makes it easier to remember what was going on around you later on," Richards says. Which is not to suggest that "letting it all hang out" makes you a genius. Or that suppressing emotions isn't important from time to time. "Don't wipe it from your emotional repertoire," Richards says. "It can serve an important function. But just be aware that by virtue of suppressing, you may not be paying enough attention to the world around you."

Tormented by Thoughts: Harming Obsession Can be Treated
ABC News, 9/25/2000

There are some drivers who believe that every time they hit a bump in the road, they have inadvertently hit a person. There are also people who have frequent thoughts about willfully hurting people, even their own children. These individuals are not crazy or violent. They suffer from a brain disorder called obsessive-compulsive disorder, specifically a type of OCD called harming obsession. Those who face this troubling form of OCD should know they are not alone. Approximately 1.5 million Americans who suffer from it. People with a harming obsession fight a daily war with their brains, trying desperately to tune out thoughts that recur again and again. They cannot rid themselves of the thoughts; in fact, the more they try to banish the thoughts, the more they intrude. There is a clear, scientific reason for the symptoms related to OCD. The brains of people with the disorder are different. They are overactive due to a chemical imbalance.
    Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, of the UCLA Medical Center, who wrote a well-known book on OCD, Brain Lock: Free Yourself From Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior, offers an analogy to another disease. He explains that the structure of a brain that does not function properly is part of the same mechanism that is broken in people with Parkinson’s disease. "So you can literally think of these intrusive thoughts as being like a tremor in the brain, " Schwartz says.

Fear of Driving
For some people, the harming obsession leads to a fear of driving. Time and again a harmless trigger leads them to believe they’ve hit a pedestrian. A common reaction to that belief might involve returning to the site, checking for a body, even getting out of the car and looking under the wheels and all around the area. They may stop and repeat that process many times in one trip, requiring hours to cover a short distance. "Just like you can go to the store and not hit anybody … you don’t even think about that when you get into your car to drive … I’m the exact opposite," says Lois Pille, who has this form of the harming obsession. "I don’t believe it’s possible to go from my house up to the store without having a body under the wheels of my car."

Visions of Violence
Donna Hedmond’s harming obsession manifests itself differently. She is tormented by thoughts of hurting her children. People with her type of harming obsession have detailed visions of committing horrible acts, but they are not at risk of becoming violent. In Hedmond’s case, the problem began when she brought her first child home. The day after her son was born, she imagined throwing him into the fire and using a fire poker to stab him. Hedmond believed she might be possessed by a demon. Despite prayers, her harming thoughts did not go away. When her daughter was born eight years later, the thoughts got even worse. Desperate, she turned to a priest for help, asking him to perform an exorcism. It was 18 years before she was referred to a doctor who could diagnosis her disease.

OCD Disrupts Life
Living with OCD can be extremely disruptive. It affects self-image, relationships and the normal routines of daily life. Many feel a pressure to keep the problem a secret, to cover it up so others don’t shun them or jump to the conclusion that they’re crazy. For Richard Dulude, who faces the same fear of driving as Pille, OCD caused the breakup of two marriages and led him to such despair that he attempted suicide. To hide the problem, Dulude makes up excuses when he does not reach a destination on time. He tells people, for instance, that he got a flat tire or ran out of gas.

Treatment
A relatively new form of therapy, called exposure therapy, is one way to help people with OCD. The therapy aims to get people to the point where they can cope with their recurring thoughts without much anxiety or distress. "To get the thought to go away or to learn to live with it people have to relax and sort of work around it," says Schwartz, who advocates exposure therapy. He tells his patients that rather than fight a thought they should ignore it and tell themselves that it’s not them, it’s just the OCD. In the case of Hedmond, who imagined harming her children, Schwartz instructed her to record her thoughts on a loop tape and then to listen to the tape over and over. Bruce Hyman, a psychologist who specializes in OCD, also uses exposure therapy. His approach is to put his patients in the situation they fear most. Therefore, for his patient Pille, the treatment involved driving. Hyman wants her to be able to accept that her fears are imaginary. The therapy involves a simulation in which Pille runs over a real object so she’ll know what it feels like. The first time she goes through the simulation, Hyman has her drive over a sandbag. A therapist then works with Pille to resist her urge to go back and check if she has run over a person. Eventually, her urge to check diminishes and she can leave without looking back.

Prognosis
Hyman suggests that people with OCD can improve significantly within three to six months.
So there is hope for those who suffer from a harming obsession. They can have the satisfaction of making progress, gaining some control over the disease, and living without being as tormented by their thoughts.
Hedmond says she has been helped by exposure therapy. When a recurring thought pops into her head she now has a much more effective strategy for dealing with it.
"I’ve learned to talk back to it. … I say to the OCD, ‘You’re not going to ruin this for me; you’re not going to have the next half of my life.’"

Facts About OCD:
Bruce Hyman and Jeffrey Schwartz elaborate on the disease:
*1 in 40 people suffer from some form of OCD.
*OCD is more prevalent than diabetes.
*A large number of OCD cases are left undiagnosed and go untreated.
*The average person with OCD suffers with it for 7 years before seeking appropriate treatment.
*Although obsessions and compulsions usually persist throughout a patient’s life, 60 percent to 80 percent of people with OCD can expect marked improvement with the proper behavioral and medical treatments.
*The average person with OCD develops the disorder before the age of 25 — some when as young as 2 years old — and only 15 percent develop it after age 35.
*In 1997, researchers at the National Institutes of Mental Health discovered an important link between childhood OCD and strep throat. It’s possible that up to 25 percent of childhood OCD is triggered by the bacteria streptococcal that causes strep throat.

For more information on the study by the NIMH :
Contact: Dr. Eda Gorbis
Clinical Assistant Professor UCLA Medical Center
Phone: (323) 651-1199
e-mail: info@hope4ocd.com
Website: www.hope4ocd.com

Trial Opens for Homeless Subway Pusher With History of Mental Illness
Samuel Maull, Associated Press, 9/25/2000

NEW YORK -- The motorman who drove the subway train that cut off Edgar Rivera's legs after he was pushed onto the tracks said Monday he was sure the man was dead when he saw his torso slumped in a crawl space. Timothy Quigley said he saw the man fall onto the tracks, landing on his hands and feet, after his train was about halfway into the East 51st Street station at Lexington Avenue on April 28, 1999. Quigley said he hit the emergency brakes but the train, going 20 miles per hour, kept moving. The man on the tracks, looking for a place to escape, dove into a crawl space under the part of the platform that overhangs the tracks. ''I knew it ran over him,'' Quigley said. ''I saw him but he didn't look at me.'' When the train stopped, the driver saw a motionless Rivera in the crawl space between the first and second cars. ''I thought he was dead,'' he said.
    Quigley, a motorman for eight years, was testifying at the attempted murder trial of Julio Perez, 44, a former mental patient who is accused of pushing Rivera, a 38-year-old Bronx father of three, in front of the train. Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro said the train severed one of Rivera's legs and left the other dangling by a ribbon of flesh. He said Rivera also had a severe head injury. Police and paramedics removed Rivera from beneath the train, putting his severed legs in a basket and taking them to the hospital in the hope they could be reattached, Casolaro said. They never were. Meanwhile, Casolaro said in opening remarks, the platform crowd, horrified by what they had seen, grabbed Perez and held him for police. Rivera, a printer by trade, now uses a wheelchair and is learning to use a pair of artificial legs. He plans to testify at Perez' trial.
    Casolaro acknowledged that Perez is mentally ill, but said his problems have not impaired his ability to function and understand. He knew what he was doing when he pushed Rivera, and he knew it was wrong, Casolaro said. The prosecutor said Perez is savvy enough to manipulate the city's social services systems and to develop computer skills and surf the Internet. Defense lawyer Stephanie Kaplan agreed that Perez knew what he was doing, but she said he is a paranoid-schizophrenic who acted because he had the delusion that Rivera was trying to kill him. ''He's severely, severely sick,'' Kaplan said. ''He's someone who believed he was doing the right thing to save his life. Mr. Perez does not have to be drooling in a corner to be a paranoid schizophrenic.''
    In a similar case, Andrew Goldstein, was sentenced this year to life in prison for pushing Kendra Webdale, 32, of Fredonia, N.Y., to her death under a subway train in January 1999. Prosecutors agreed that Goldstein, 31, was mentally ill, but they argued that he was very aware of when, and with whom, he could be violent. Goldstein's lawyers said he could not control himself because he was schizophrenic. They also said Webdale would not have died if Goldstein had received the help he continually sought from public mental hospitals.

Fake Russian Alcohol is Having Fatal Effect
   Colin McMahon, Chicago Tribune- 9/26/2000

MOSCOW -- Irina Pimkina is a sort of professional drinker. Vodka is the house specialty, but Pimkina also imbibes wine, beer, cognac, whiskey and other spirits. As laboratory chief of the Russian Center for Testing and Certification, Pimkina has at her disposal test tubes, computers and other equipment to test a product's authenticity. But her sense of taste is a formidable tool as well. With Russia awash in fake beverages, some of them dangerously inferior, Pimkina keeps busy. This year is proving a bad one for alcohol-poisoning deaths in Russia.  More than 16,000 Russians died of alcohol poisoning in the first half of this year, according to the National Alcohol Association. That is up 45 percent from last year. The United States, which has nearly double Russia's population of 145 million, has about 300 deaths from alcohol poisoning in an average year. Most such deaths in Russia are from people drinking too much. But many are traced to bad-quality spirits.
    "The cases in which people die from a few sips are not so common," said Tatyana Savluchinskaya, a colleague of Pimkina's at the Moscow testing center. "Most of the time it is the quantity that kills people. But the quality of the ethyl alcohol sometimes does matter even in those cases." In other words, drink a little of a bad product and you get sick. Drink a lot of it and you could die. Russia's distillers blame this year's higher death toll on a 40 percent rise in taxes on alcohol. They say that the taxes, which the alcohol lobby wants the government to cut, force drinkers to abandon legitimate products for cheaper imitations or black market moonshine.
    Plenty of those options are available, as Pimkina can attest. Her laboratory at the government-owned center tests thousands of products taken from factories, warehouses and markets. It is crammed with bottles that are numbered, cataloged by computer and separated by alcohol type. Pimkina has more than 250 brands of vodka alone, and she figures that is only about a quarter of what is available on the market. Russians can buy bootleg vodka outside subway stations, in sidewalk kiosks, from basement apartments. Sometimes the customer knows the stuff isn't genuine, sometimes not. Wine, especially that purporting to be from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, frequently is fake too. Some experts estimate that as much as 70 percent of all Georgian wine sold in Moscow is not what the labels claim. Luckily, these wines rarely kill anything beyond a person's appetite.
    The poisoning deaths offer only a glimpse into Russia's troubles with alcohol, abuse of which is a key factor in the country's poor health and high death rate. The poisoning figures do not, for example, take into account the role alcohol plays in fatal car crashes or other accidents. This year's higher death toll is especially disappointing because authorities had been making progress since the darkest days of the mid-1990s. Deaths caused by alcohol poisoning had dropped since 1995, thanks to an improving economy and stepped-up enforcement.
    In the first seven months of this year, according to the Interior Ministry, authorities uncovered more than 15,000 illegal distilleries and levied tens of millions of dollars in fines. At least 114 criminal groups were involved. When police close a still or confiscate a shipment, they sometimes bring a sample to Pimkina's lab. There she can test the alcohol content, seeing if it matches the information on the label. She can compare its chemical makeup with similar products. She also can take a swig. "We don't have to taste test a product if it makes us too uncomfortable," Pimkina said. "Sometimes you get these bottles and the color or something else is not right. I can say, `I'm not tasting that.'"

Congress May Not Have Time to Renew Domestic Violence Act
Mary Anne George, Detroit Free Press- 9/26/2000

Rebecca Stieg knows the quiet country roads and rolling farmland of Osceola County make it harder for battered women to leave a bad situation. With no public transportation and the nearest neighbor often miles away, victims have few ways to escape the violence that haunts their lives. Stieg, Osceola County's outreach coordinator for the Women's Information Service, a battered women's shelter in Big Rapids, meets the women wherever she can -- in restaurants, churches, parks and schools. But Stieg's program and 11 other outreach programs for battered women in rural areas of the state may themselves become victims -- to congressional gridlock on Capitol Hill.
    Unless the federal Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, is reauthorized before Congress is scheduled to adjourn Oct. 6, the rural outreach programs in Michigan will lose their federal funding. Statewide, more than 60 programs funded by the act -- including 45 shelters serving 83 counties -- would be jeopardized if the bill does not pass. The programs will be forced to scramble for alternative funds or close their doors. Although there is bipartisan support in both houses for the bill, supporters blame Republican leaders -- who have a majority in Congress -- for failing to bring it to a vote. VAWA could fall victim to the rush to go home for the elections, said Juley Fulcher, public policy director for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "A promise is not legislation sitting on the president's desk," Fulcher said. "There is no excuse not to pass this bill, but people are figuring out what bill they can trade for another bill. There are dozens of bills waiting for action, and this one is caught in the middle."
    Working from her small office in the United Methodist Church in Reed City, Stieg helps abused women in Osceola County start their lives over. She helps women get to shelters, attend support groups, build a network of friends and find apartments and cars.  "When the nearest neighbor is five miles away, women are much more isolated," Stieg said. "It's harder to get out and easier for the batterer to control them. There aren't many opportunities to build their self-esteem ...All she gets is the negative input from the batterer." Hundreds of other innovative programs throughout the country financed by VAWA, would also be at risk. Funded through next year, they could receive separate yearly appropriations from Congress. But domestic violence advocates fear they would also be harmed by partisan politics and budget slashing.

Landmark Legislation
The Violence Against Women Act, enacted in 1994, was considered landmark legislation and has been widely praised as one of the nation's most effective vehicles for combating domestic violence and sexual assault. During the last six years, $1.6 billion -- including $34 million in Michigan -- has been allocated to increase protections for victims, train police, judges and prosecutors about domestic violence and sexual assault, and increase prosecution of offenders. It created a framework for various programs to coordinate their efforts to combat domestic violence and sexual assault. The legislation also funded a national hot line for victims that averages 13,000 calls a month. In states where local funding is sparse, VAWA is the only source of funds financial support for domestic violence programs, advocates say.
    Still, domestic violence continues at epidemic levels, according to law enforcement officials and victim advocates. In 1998, there were an estimated 1 million incidents of domestic violence nationally, including nearly 2,000 homicides, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. In Michigan that same year, there were more than 47,000 incidents and 46 homicides, according to state police. About 85 percent of the victims were women. The House version of the new bill would allocate $3.8 billion over five years; the Senate version would allocate $3.2 billion during the same period to expand programs.
    Among the improvements are funding for transitional housing for victims and improved protection for immigrant women and disabled and elderly people. Legal assistance programs and shelter programs would also be expanded. The enforcement of personal protection orders across state lines and the collection of data about domestic violence would also be increased.  "The Violence Against Women Act is the trellis the rose bush grows on," said Pat Reuss, vice president of government relations for the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense & Education Fund. "In six years we took domestic violence from being a family concern and made it a neighborhood and national concern. But six years is not enough to end a national epidemic. We must change a whole culture to understand that you don't hit, rape and beat women and children."

Clinton urges action
On Monday, President Bill Clinton urged Congress to pass the bill during a fund-raising appearance in Santa Fe, N.M.  The bill also became an issue in the presidential campaign last week when Texas Gov. George Bush said he was not aware of VAWA -- although his state received $50 million in grants from the act -- in response to a woman's question at a Pennsylvania voters' forum. Karen Hughes, Bush's spokeswoman, later said he supports the reauthorization. But Vice President Al Gore's campaign criticized Bush for failing to recognize the importance of the issue. Gore supported VAWA in 1994 and supports the new bill. On Thursday, Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Auburn Hills, who authored provisions to expand protection for immigrant women in the Senate bill, sent a letter urging passage of the bill.  Among Michigan's more innovative programs that would be harmed if the bill is not passed is the supervised parenting program at Oakland County's HAVEN shelter, which monitors family visitation and custody exchanges using HAVEN staffers.  The funds also financed a 5-year, $10-million grant in Washtenaw County for more prosecutors, probation officers and counseling services. "These are tax dollars that are well-spent," said Jim Fink, chairman of the state's Domestic Violence Prevention and Treatment Board.