Deal OK's to keep serial drunken driver behind bars

By Peter H. Milliken

1But the 54-year-old repeat offender learned Thursday that he finally hit the end of the road when he drove drunk in Mahoning County.

“You’re a loaded gun pointing into a crowd, and somebody’s going to get hurt real bad or killed because of your conduct. You deserve a substantial amount of time in the penitentiary,” Judge R. Scott Krichbaum told Bragwell as he imposed a six-year prison term.

“He lived in that border area, where Stark and Portage and Mahoning [counties] all come together, and this is the only time he’s ever had one in Mahoning County,” said J. Michael Thompson, assistant county prosecutor.

The one time he was charged with drunken driving in Mahoning County, his 13th DUI arrest, “he got nailed,” Thompson said.

Police, prosecutors and courts should compare notes on past offenses of such multiple drunken-driving offenders, as Sebring police and the Mahoning County prosecutor’s office did in Bragwell’s case, Thompson said. He singled out Officer Michael Porter of the Sebring police department for his work in arresting Bragwell for his 13th DUI in March 2006.

Porter also arrested Paul Stillion, 47, of Sebring, for his 10th DUI this past January. Last month, Judge Krichbaum put Stillion in prison for five years for that crime.

“It’s the fault of the judges he appeared in front of before he got to me,” Judge Krichbaum of common pleas court said of Bragwell’s accumulation of DUI convictions.

Thompson’s records showed Bragwell did prison time for a 1997 Portage County DUI, but Thompson added he didn’t know how much time Bragwell served for that offense. Bragwell already has been locked up for 28 months for his 13th impaired-driving arrest.

Unlike 12-time offender James Cline of Geauga County, who is serving 38 years in prison for a March 2006 accident that killed two Hiram College students and seriously injured a third, Bragwell hasn’t hurt or killed anyone, Judge Krichbaum observed.

“My effort is to make sure he never hurts anybody. That’s what I tried to do with the sentence,” Judge Krichbaum said of Bragwell after court. The judge also revoked Bragwell’s driver’s license for life.

In August 2006, Judge Krichbaum sentenced Bragwell to three years for his 13th DUI and three consecutive years for the repeat-offender specification attached to it, for a total of six years.

The case returned to Judge Krichbaum after the 7th District Court of Appeals vacated Bragwell’s guilty plea to that charge, saying the repeat-offender specification in the indictment was flawed because it didn’t include the required mention of five or more drunken-driving convictions within the previous 20 years.

On Thursday, Bragwell, an inmate at Grafton Correctional Institution, waived a reindictment by the grand jury and pleaded guilty.

The prosecution and defense agreed to the same six-year sentence Judge Krichbaum imposed in 2006. The judge adopted it, making the deal nonappealable.

Bragwell’s first DUI arrest came in 1980 in Summit County. Though he is one of the worst repeat DUI offenders in the state, he’s not the worst. As of late March, one Mahoning County resident has 14 DUI convictions; two Trumbull County residents have 12 each; and two Columbiana County residents have 10 each, said Julie Ehrhart, public information officer at the Ohio Department of Public Safety in Columbus.

One Franklin County and one Cuyahoga County resident each have 17, the highest in the state, she said.

Since record keeping began at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles in the 1970s, there have been 303,352 repeat DUI offenders, she said, adding 17 percent of all people convicted are repeaters.

Repeat DUI offenders “have no regard for themselves or anyone else,” said Lt. Chris Heverly, commander of the Ohio State Highway Patrol post in Canfield. “What’s it going to take until they start to care? What extent of seriousness will it take?”

When asked if the penalties are stiff enough, Heverly said maybe it would make a difference if they were stiffer earlier — before repeat offenders get to 13 convictions.

Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning’s common pleas court said he has made up charts for himself to keep up with changes in the sentencing guidelines, which he called “a mess.”

The judge said he’d like the state Legislature to simplify the guidelines, adding most judges don’t like the constraints on how much prison time can be imposed.

“The current version of Ohio’s DUI statute covers eight pages in my criminal law handbook. This does not take into account the related statutes and those to which it might refer you to as you are dealing with a case and the endless revisions issued from the Legislature,” said Youngstown Prosecutor Jay Macejko. “It is sometimes difficult to keep up with the changes.”

Macejko, a former assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, said the penalties for repeat offenders are adequate. Offenders can go to jail for six to 12 months for misdemeanors and for 18 to 30 months in prison and/or treatment for felonies. If someone dies in conjunction with the commission of a DUI offense, the offender can be imprisoned for a mandatory term of two to 10 years, depending on the circumstances, he said.

Bragwell’s lawyer, John P. Laczko, said pleading guilty was prudent for his client because the prosecution’s evidence was sufficient to convict and because a jury would have learned of Bragwell’s two prior felony DUI convictions.

XCONTRIBUTOR: Vindicator crime reporter Patricia Meade.