March 8, 2007

Statement of Attribution to:  Caroline Cash Executive Director, MADD Chesapeake Region (MD & DE)

Due to new information surrounding the circumstances of the stop of Representative Atkins, we do not believe proper investigative procedure for a suspected drunk driver was followed. Specifically that the standardized field sobriety tests should have been performed, given the reasonable suspicion that the officer had for the offense of driving while intoxicated.   In this instance, the officer allowed Atkins to have someone drive him home.  Along these lines, MADD is extremely disappointed to learn according to the Delaware House of Representatives Ethics Commission report that Representative Atkins chose to drive again once he arrived in Delaware after the original traffic stop in Maryland despite the fact that a preliminary breath test showed he was well above the illegal blood alcohol level.

We know more now than we did at the time of our original statement per the Ethics Committee Report and we have looked further into Maryland law, traffic stop procedures, and spoken to law enforcement experts.  We have determined that field sobriety testing should have occurred at the traffic stop on October 29th. 

Additionally, we are concerned with the ongoing internal investigation of the OCPD and comments made to the press.  Including the WMDT news report on Feb. 15 when Chief Bernadette DiPino admitted her officers let some suspected drunks do this. [call for a ride home]  She says, according to the news article, "Does it happen? I'm sure it happens. And again it depends on what the officer observes, what the circumstances are and whether they think they can get a conviction." MADD aims to visit with them further about this as it appears to go against generally accepted law enforcement procedures. 
Often times there are legitimate concerns about drunk driving cases not going to trial or being pled down or dismissed and MADD can tackle solutions through its court monitoring projects and legislative advocacy but MADD cannot fix the problem alone.  MADD stands by our original statement that Maryland ’s laws need improvement and we intend to work hard to make sure that happens.  However, these concerns about cases not going to trial or being dismissed, do not justify not performing the standard law enforcement techniques at road side investigations.  At this time, MADD will continue to work closely with all law enforcement to provide the tools, resources and support needed to find, arrest, and convict drunk drivers but we will need the support and cooperation of the public, legislators, judges and prosecutors to make this happen. 

We believe that the job law enforcement faces is extremely tough and they are often the first to be criticized for high-profile mistakes and the last to be lauded when they do a great job.  MADD strongly supports law enforcement’s effort to keep drunk drivers off the road.  We believe that in the vast majority of cases, good procedures are followed but we need to always ensure that arrests are made when they should be, and we cannot support instances where proper procedure is not followed to protect the public.

MADD will continue to work within the Delmarva Peninsula  to make sure the roads are safe for everyone and we invite citizens interested in volunteering to contact me directly at caroline.cash@madd.org or (301) 230-2990.  We have a lot of work to do and we need everyone’s help.