DWI Blood Testing
By: Danielle Todesco
Updated: January 1, 2009
While officers will be out enforcing drunk driving for New Year's Eve, there's one tool they won't be using...blood testing.
Blood sampling started in April of this year and on specific holidays throughout the year, the District Attorney's office now has 21 DWI's with blood samples, 7 of those convictions. Now they're evaluating the system to see what changes or expansions to make. Tom Brummett with the DA's office says they consider the system a success, but want to wait for next year to try it again.
"I consider it a success in that the people that have plead guilty and the ones that are going to enter guilty pleas to DWI's...when you look at those cases, the evidence that we would have without this program is not of a strong enough nature to probably encourage them to enter a guilty plea."
Brummett says they surprisingly don't see as many DWI's on New Year's Eve compared to other holidays like the July 4th.
