[ OUR OPINION ]
Enforcing strong DUI law
reduces traffic death ratesHAWAII continued its decline last year in the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths, continuing to follow a national trend over the past two decades. Tougher laws against drunken driving and increased enforcement of those laws can be credited with much of the improvement, while education about the perils of driving while intoxicated has contributed to the success.
THE ISSUE
A federal report shows Hawaii has experienced a decrease in the percentage of alcohol-related traffic fatalities.
Figures released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths nationally fell from 164 per million miles driven in 1982 to 61 deaths per million miles in 2002. In Hawaii, 50 of Hawaii's 119 traffic deaths last year were alcohol-related, which translates to 56 booze-related deaths per million miles, compared with 170 in 1982.
These are not all cases of drunken driving. By alcohol-related, the agency means that either the driver or a pedestrian involved in the accident had a blood-alcohol content of at least 0.01, far lower than the 0.08 legal threshold for adults in Hawaii and 44 other states.
Still, the figures provide a strong indication that states with stronger drunken-driving laws and enforcement have fewer alcohol-related accidents. Five of the six states with the highest rate of alcohol-related traffic deaths last year had legal blood-alcohol content limits of 0.10. Vermont was the only state with consistent annual declines since 1998, when that state put several measures into place after finding it had the worst rate of teen alcohol-related accidents in the mid-1990s.
Maj. Brian Wauke of the Honolulu Police Department's traffic division says the department put up 118 roadblocks last year and has initiated 137 so far this year. "We're trying harder and doing what we can, staffing permitted," Wauke says. Honolulu police make more than 2,000 drunken-driving arrests a year.
Hawaii's alcohol-related traffic fatality record has been bumpier than the national trend over the past two decades, but the direction and current level is about the same. The national percentage of traffic deaths involving alcohol dropped from 60 percent in 1982 to 41 percent last year, while Hawaii's percentage fell from 63 percent in to 42 percent.
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Allow sex offenders
to shed scarlet letterHAWAII'S Supreme Court struck down the state's version of Megan's Law requiring public registration of sex offenders two years ago, ruling that it deprived past offenders a "meaningful opportunity" to prove they are not a continuing threat to society. State Attorney General Mark Bennett wants to resurrect the registry Web site by changing the state Constitution to strip them of any such opportunity. The high court was right in ordering the registry's demise, and a more extreme version should not be resurrected by fueling voters' outrage at crimes for which the offenders already have completed their sentences.
THE ISSUE
Hawaii's attorney general has proposed a state constitutional amendment to resurrect the state Sex Offender Registry.
Megan's Law originated in New Jersey, where a young girl was killed by a neighbor who had been convicted of a sex offense. The Hawaii Legislature enacted its version in 1997, displaying convicted offenders' identities, home addresses and workplace locations on a state Internet registry.
All 50 states are required by federal law to provide public notification of sex offenders' whereabouts, but state courts must determine the circumstances. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that registered sex offenders should be allowed "a meaningful opportunity to argue that he or she does not represent a threat to the community and that public notification is not necessary, or that he or she represents only a limited threat such that limited public notification is appropriate."
Hawaii's registry law had been challenged by a man who had been convicted of grabbing the buttocks of a 17-year-old girl in Waikiki. The high court unanimously found that the law violated the state constitutional right to due process, privacy, equal protection and protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
Bennett wants voters to allow the state to strip convicted sex offenders of those rights after their release from prison and subject them to a lifetime of humiliation. He says the identities and whereabouts of 1,900 convicted sex offenders who already have served their time would be posted on the Internet.
Bennett's proposal is more radical than the law struck down by the court. Not until five years after their convictions does the unconstitutionally severe Hawaii law afford a sexual offender an opportunity to challenge inclusion in the registry. The offender could avoid the registry only by presenting "clear and convincing evidence" -- the legal system's most severe burden of proof -- at a hearing that no such threat would result. Bennett wants to deny offenders any hearing at all.
