Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 21, 1993 TAG: 9312210183
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN and LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Catherine M. York, 23, of Peters Creek Road originally was charged by state police with reckless driving after a three-vehicle accident on U.S. 11 in Pulaski County late Friday afternoon.
Monday, authorities added the manslaughter charge and a charge of driving with no liability insurance.
York is being held in the Pulaski County Jail. The public defender's office has been appointed to represent her at a Jan. 25 hearing.
York is the third Roanoke motorist to be charged this year with causing a fatal accident while driving with a suspended license.
Ruby E. McGhee, 69, of Yukon, W.Va., was killed when the four-wheel-drive vehicle in which she was riding collided with a dump truck.
The dump truck, driven by Bennett Mann, 34, of Dublin, was forced into oncoming traffic after it struck a car - allegedly driven by York - going the wrong way on the highway, according to state police.
Mann's truck left the road and smashed onto the four-wheel-drive vehicle driven by Robert Rutherford, 42, of Radford. Rutherford was released Sunday from Radford Community Hospital.
Court records show that York has a history of driving offenses.
Her license was suspended in May after she was convicted of drunken driving in Roanoke County.
In June, she was charged twice with driving on a suspended license - once in Roanoke, and once in Roanoke County. Those charges have not been tried.
York also has been charged with speeding and failing to comply with court-ordered alcohol counseling since her DUI conviction, according to court records.
Earlier this year, the cases of two suspended drivers who caused fatal accidents in the Roanoke Valley created a public outcry that led the House of Delegates Courts of Justice Committee to hold a public hearing on the issue.
Although most of the rhetoric was focused on habitual offender Stanley Brooks and restricted driver John Stover - who between them killed four people, including Brooks - legislators faced a bigger problem.
With an estimated 665,000 suspended drivers statewide, one obstacle they confronted was how to distinguish between dangerous suspended drivers and those who lost their licenses for failing to pay fines on less-serious offenses, such as an expired inspection sticker.
This month, a subcommittee of the panel endorsed a package of legislation to be considered at next year's session of the General Assembly.
Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Roanoke County, chairman of the subcommittee, said he plans to introduce a bill that would allow police to immediately impound the cars of motorists with earlier DUI convictions caught driving on a suspended license.
Had that law been on the books last spring, York's car would have been impounded for 30 days after she was charged in June with driving on a suspended license.
Cranwell's bill also will include administrative revocation - giving police the power to take the license from a suspected drunken driver at the time of arrest - and lowering the blood-alcohol level necessary for a conviction.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB