Mother pleads for much longer prison sentences in deadly DWI crashes
Mar. 10—CONCORD — A mother urged lawmakers Wednesday to memorialize her Bow son by authorizing stiffer sentences for repeat drunken drivers who kill others on New Hampshire highways.
Beth Shaw continued her multi-year campaign for reform, asking the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee to pass the "Tyler Shaw Law," which would be named after her late son.
Tyler Shaw, 20, was in his truck, idling at a stop sign at the Exit 1 on-ramp of Interstate 89 on Logging Hill Road in Bow the night of April 30, 2018, when Joseph Leonard, then 37, of Derry, drove his car into Shaw's truck at about 60 mph, killing him instantly.
Leonard's blood alcohol content was .16, twice the legal limit, and the DWI case was his third, including a 2010 conviction after another accident when his BAC was three times the legal limit.
"I always wonder if Mr. Leonard had served some time, any time, from his second conviction would it have changed his behavior. More importantly for me, would my son be alive today?" Shaw said.
Leonard is serving a six- to 12-year prison sentence after his conviction for negligent homicide, which other states call vehicular homicide.
This bill (HB 179) would increase the punishment in cases like Leonard's to 15 to 30 years. Anyone with one previous DWI who killed someone in an auto accident would be sentenced to state prison for 10 to 20 years.
"If your son, daughter, spouse or parent were senselessly, brutally murdered by a person whose driving record is littered with drunk-driving convictions, would you feel six years is an adequate punishment for the offender?" Shaw asked.
Former Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes, D-Concord, authored the same bill in 2020. The bill passed the Senate, but the House never acted on it (and dozens of other bills) after COVID-19 curtailed the legislative agenda.
'Gap in the law'
Rep. Daryl Abbas, R-Salem, chairman of the panel that heard the bill Wednesday, took up the cause.
"I became convinced in listening to this case that there is a clear gap in the law," Abbas said.
Katherine Cooper, executive director of the New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, was the only person to speak against the bill.
"There is no way to make these systems perfect. I know that is no consolation, but it is unfortunately the reality," Cooper said. "This creates a major escalation in the felony and for first offenders (for negligent homicide)."
Cooper said drunken-driving deaths have significantly dropped from their all-time highs in the 1980s.
"We have made a lot of progress in this country, discouraging drunken driving," Cooper said. "There always are going to be people who don't respond to that social messaging, especially people with severe alcohol abuse problems."
After his second DWI conviction, Leonard was sentenced to 12 months in jail, but the judge suspended the entire term. The judge ordered an ignition interlock device be installed in Leonard's car to prevent the car from starting if it recorded a blood alcohol level above the legal limit.
Shaw said six months after it was put into the car, Leonard blew a .16 into the device, twice the legal limit.
In 2016, the state held a hearing on whether to keep the device in place. A Department of Safety hearings examiner extended the use of the device for another six months. But six months after it was removed, Leonard was driving home drunk from his job in Lebanon when he killed Shaw.
"We can look at whether the six-month extension was long enough. In retrospect it probably was not," said Christopher Casko, administrator of hearings for the safety agency.
