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A city law that allows police to seize the vehicles of repeat drunk driving offenders now applies in all of Bernalillo County.
District 5 County Commissioner Wayne Johnson said the country sheriff approached him about the extending the law. The policy became law last month, but Johnson said it will not formally take effect until Oct. 25.
According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 32 percent of traffic related deaths in New Mexico involve DWIs.
Johnson said the new law will help reduce the number of DWIs because it discourages people who think it is fine to drink and drive by imposing increased costs on drunk drivers, especially on people who have already received a DWI conviction in the past. He said the law is also aimed at people who facilitate drunk driving by lending convicted DWI offenders their vehicles, because offenders with two previous DWI convictions often have interlocks installed in their own vehicles.
“(The law) targets people who enable people with previous convictions to drink and drive,” he said. “People will be a lot less likely to drink and drive if they know they can lose their vehicle.”.
In New Mexico, the current maximum penalties for a second DWI conviction include up to 364 days in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, at least 48 hours of community service, up to five years on probation, the revocation of the offender’s driver’s license for two years and the installation of an interlock in the offender’s vehicle for two years.
Johnson said a similar car-seizure law has already been in effect in the city of Albuquerque for the past 10 years. He said that in order to escape car seizure in the city, offenders often drink and drive in secluded areas around Bernalillo County, because the car seizure law wasn’t in effect in those areas.
“Part of the justification is that we needed to match the consistency,” he said. “There are people who understand the law and just drink and drive somewhere else in the county to not risk car seizure in the city.”
Through the new car-seizure law, a probable-cause hearing will determine whether an offender’s vehicle should be seized.
Johnson said that if the driver has received at least two DWI convictions, an officer can seize the driver’s vehicle and take it to a parking yard in Albuquerque. He said the owners will be accompanied to the site by officers while the vehicle is transported. He said seized vehicles will be sold at auction and that the revenue will be used to fund DWI prevention education initiatives in the county.
But Johnson said that offenders can appeal the results of the probable-cause hearing to the Second Judicial District Court. He said that if a repeat offender is driving a borrowed car, the owner of the vehicle can ask for innocent-owner provision in the hearing, which allows the owner to explain that he or she was unaware that the driver had been convicted of a DWI.
Johnson said that if the owner’s claims prove to be true, the vehicle will be returned to him or her at no cost.
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“Every decision by the county can be appealed to the district court,” he said.
But instead of having their vehicles seized, Johnson said that offenders can also agree to have it booted at their residence for at least 30 days and then returned to them.
“There are other options,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is for people to monitor their behaviors themselves instead of punishing them with seizure.”
Johnson said that the law already proved to be effective in Albuquerque in the past.
“The reason why we do it is it worked,” he said. “The lot that they have for seizure is two-thirds empty now, compared to years ago.”
