Action 3 News - Omaha, Nebraska News, Weather, and Sports | Lawmaker and MADD react to Loaded Loophole
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"An injustice", that's how Nebraska State Senator Tony Fulton is terming what happened to Dr. Elizabeth Johnson. Dr. Johnson was a dentist in O'Neill, Nebraska in 2006, when a drunk driver crashed his car into the back of the Johnson's pick-up truck. Dr. Johnson still suffers from severe neck and back pain due to disc damage.
Back in November, Action 3 News uncovered that the man who hit Dr. Johnson had a blood alcohol level of .544. He also had three prior DUI convictions. He's multi-millionaire and Omaha construction company President Ken Hawkins. Yet Holt County Judge Alan Brodbeck allowed Hawkins to plead guilty to DUI first offense. The judge sentenced Hawkins to six months probation and fined him 400 dollars.
The Judge told Action 3's Craig Nigrelli, that state law only allowed him to "look-back" twelve years on Hawkins driving record and there were no DUIs in that period. That's true our investigation found that Hawkins DUI convictions were in 1992, 1989 and 1985. It was Hawkins himself who told the Judge his BAC was .54. Action Three News reviewed the court transcript and uncovered that Holt County Attorney Tom Herzog never told the Judge what Hawkins blood alcohol level was.
Action 3 News took our investigation to the State Capitol. Senator Fulton viewed Loaded Loophole and told Nigrelli, he wonders how the .54 blood alcohol level could've been missed by the prosecution. The Republican from Lincoln says he agrees with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, that perhaps there should be a law making it mandatory that hospitals report a drunk driver's blood alcohol level to the prosecutor. Right now, it is up to the prosecutor to request it. In addition, Fulton also believes it might be time to extend Nebraska's "look-back" period on driving records, for DUI offenders, to twenty years.
Reported byCraig Nigrelli, Action 3 News.
