
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994                    TAG: 9406240051 
SECTION: COMMENTARY                     PAGE: J4    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Medium 
DATELINE: 940626                                 LENGTH:

21 YEARS FOR A DRUNKEN DRIVER\

{LEAD} John Haigh was as drunk as a lord when he crashed the pickup he was driving into an automobile containing four college students last November. Outcome: two dead, two severely handicapped.

Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Alan E. Rosenblatt rightly imposed the maximum penalty upon Haigh: a 10-year sentence for each of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and a one-year sentence for driving while intoxicated, for a total of 21.

{REST} Haigh is everybody's nightmare: a repeat offender whom the courts repeatedly fail to banish from the roads for prolonged periods until he has killed or maimed. Haigh's police record shows a dozen convictions for public drunkenness and three for drunken driving.

Just such a driver provoked a grief-stricken mother to found Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the most prominent among a host of grass-roots organizations that have not only pressed successfully for tougher anti-drunken-driving laws and tougher punishment of drunken drivers but also have turned public sentiment against leniency. Outcome: a shrinking number and percentage of alcohol-related highway fatalities.

That's progress, though not yet enough - as the heartbreaking losses that are the consequence of Haigh's reckless disregard for life attest. America still has much work to do to get the Haighs off the roads.

Meanwhile, Virginia Beach prosecutors say that Haigh will be eligible for parole in five or six years. Is it unreasonable to doubt, given his record, that Haigh will be improved by his forthcoming stretch behind bars, whether six years or 21? Can he ever be released in the confident expectation that he will refrain from driving blind drunk again?

by CNB