From Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
2013-08-14 – In Florida, if you throw back too many drinks, jump in a car and cause an accident that kills someone, you face a DUI manslaughter charge and a minimum of four years in prison.
But flee the scene to sober up and turn yourself in later, and you can shave years off your punishment — an unacceptable gap in state sentencing laws.
Penalties for drivers under the influence who kill someone are much steeper than for deadly drunk drivers who leave the scene.
Indeed, state law sets no minimum prison sentence for leaving the scene of a fatal crash. Even if you’re somehow found to have been intoxicated at the time, the minimum prison term is just two years.
Compare that to someone convicted of DUI manslaughter, who faces an automatic term of four years.
See the problem?
On balance, state law creates an incentive for drunk drivers to flee the scene of an accident.
As they prepare for the annual start of committee meetings next month in Tallahassee, Florida lawmakers should make it a priority to level the penalties for drunk drivers who leave the scene of a fatal crash with those convicted of DUI manslaughter, if not make the consequences worse.
Leading the call for change are friends and family of Aaron Cohen, who while cycling with a friend on Miami’s Rickenbacker Causeway early one morning last year, was hit by the driver of a silver Honda, who immediately sped off.
Cohen died of head injuries. Gone was a devoted husband. Gone was the doting father of Lilly and Aiden, ages 3 and 1 at the time. And gone was a person so nice, he would stop on the way to the airport to buy candy to share with flight attendants.
And gone, at least from the bloody scene, was Michele Traverso, whom police later identified as the driver of the silver Honda.
Based on witness accounts, recovered receipts and video recordings, police stitched together what happened that morning. Traverso had enjoyed several gin drinks at a Coconut Grove bar hours before the crash. After fatally striking Cohen, he drove to his condominium on Key Biscayne. He staggered through the parking lot and caught the attention of a security guard, who reported his heavily damaged car. He waited 18 hours to turn himself in.
In the end, Traverso avoided DUI manslaughter charges and a six-year prison sentence sought by prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. He spent a year in county jail awaiting trial, then was sentenced to another 364 days, followed by two years of supervision.
No alcohol in his blood meant no smoking gun.
Last year, Florida witnessed nearly 70,000 hit-and-run incidents, with about 20,000 of those occurring in South Florida. Between April 2011 and April 2013, hit-and-run drivers killed 92 people in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
State law requires drivers in a crash to stop and stay at the scene to exchange information or render reasonable assistance to the injured ….MORE
