Sunday, January 16, 1994 Page: 1 & 16A QUICK WORDS: DRINKING, DRIVING
AND DEATH DON’T DISCRIMINATE
Drinking, driving and death don’t discriminate
It’s not a man’s road anymore`Good girls’ are getting drunk and getting
behind the wheel — and the statistics are sobering.
By DAWN SHURMAITIS
Times Leader Staff Writer
When Caroline Petrini graduated from high school in 1986, the smiling
senior said in her yearbook blurb she “lives for those weekends.”
Petrini, nicknamed “Cub,” went on to list four other chums as her “partners
in crime.”
Cute stuff — then. Now, it could appear an eerie portent for Petrini’s
future.
In October, after a night of drinking and dancing at a local hot spot, the
college kid became an accused killer.
Instead of graduation, the Wilkes University junior now faces 12 years in
state prison if convicted of two felony counts of homicide by vehicle while
driving drunk. She is accused of driving her Chevrolet Blazer into two men
walking along a rain-slick highway after a long night’s work.
The dead men were doing their jobs as kitchen cleaners at the same time
Petrini was partying in the same hotel’s bar.
On Oct. 21, Michael Holena, 40, of Wilkes-Barre, and David Martin Banks,
30, of Plymouth became numbers five and six on the county coroner’s 1993 list
of motor-vehicle victims.
Petrini, a Mellon Bank teller studying business, also became a statistic.
According to law enforcement officials, Petrini might be a first for Luzerne
County: a woman charged with killing while driving drunk.
Nationally, she’s not alone.
While statistics show drunken-driving arrests overall are down, the
proportion of female drivers involved in fatal crashes nationwide and the
number arrested for drunken driving may be increasing, according to a study by
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“Drinking and driving traditionally has been considered a problem
predominantly among males,” the study said. “The increasing number of females
involved in fatal crashes underscores the need to better characterize this
problem.”
How did a teen voted “Most Unique” by her classmates, a girl described by
school officials as bright and stylish, end up in stories splashed across the
front page of her local newspaper?
Those who know her just shake their heads.
“She came from a good family. She was very personable and very, very nice.
If you ever needed a favor, or any kind of help, you could call on her,” says
Anthony Perrone, supervisor of pupil services at John S. Fine High School in
Nanticoke.
“I don’t know what happened, or why she got in trouble.”
Real life, real people
Caroline Petrini is a 25-year-old educated woman with no prior criminal
record who still lives with her parents in a well-kept ranch home in a good
Nanticoke neighborhood.
Her dad’s success as a car dealer helped buy her the Blazer she was driving
the night of the crash. Police say the 1992 sports-utility vehicle was spotted
with blood and hair.
Petrini, the youngest of three daughters, a girl known for her chic
clothes, is not a stereotypical drunken driver.
That would be a blue-collar male, aged 21-34, with little or no college
education who lives in a rural area and frequents taverns, according to the
National Center for Statistics and Analysis in Washington, D.C.
One way or another, Petrini’s middle-class appearance and background is
expected to have an impact on the jury in her upcoming trial.
During her Nov. 15 preliminary hearing, Petrini clutched rosary beads and
kept her head bowed. She looked scared.
Prosecution witnesses, however, painted a picture of a stumbling, mumbling
drunk. Police say she seemed more concerned with the damage to her new vehicle
than the two men she left dying on the highway.
Her attorney, John Moses, says that just isn’t so.
His client, he says, returned to the scene after continuing on to the diner
where she planned to meet friends. She turned over one of the bodies and
thought about performing CPR.
“She was totally devastated by this thing,” Moses says. “I can’t hold a
10-minute interview with her without her breaking into tears.”
Moses says he’s trying to arrange a meeting between Petrini and the
victims’ families to give her a chance to say she’s sorry.
Long-time friends of her family say Petrini was unfairly portrayed by the
media as a callous party girl. That portrait, they say, is not accurate.
“I’ve known her since the day she was born,” says Lawrence Street neighbor
Betty Swithers. “I feel bad for all the families involved, but it wasn’t done
with malice. It was just a tragic accident.”
That’s just what Moses plans to argue during Petrini’s trial, expected to
take place in late spring.
Petrini agreed to take blood and urine tests the morning of the accident.
The first blood test, at 3:25 a.m., showed a 0.187 blood-alcohol level .
Another at 4 a.m. showed 0.174. The level at which someone is legally drunk is
.10.
A high count is not enough to guarantee a guilty verdict. The law says
prosecutors must prove alcohol was a direct cause of the accident to justify
charges of homicide by vehicle while driving drunk.
Moses says a wet road and poor visibility — not the wine Petrini drank at
the bar — caused the accident.
“The darkness, the wet condition, the fact that those individuals were on
the paved portion of the highway — any individual would have had difficulty,”
Moses says.
“This was an accident.”
The numbers reveal
Drunken driving accidents are decreasing.
In 1991, there were 522 alcohol-related crashes reported in Luzerne County.
That year, 23 people were killed and 507 injured.
In 1992, the number of crashes declined to 494 and the number of dead
declined to 17. The only increase came in the number of injured — which rose
to 542, according to the Wyoming Valley Alcohol & Drug Services Inc.
In 1993, four people died in Luzerne County as a result of drunken driving.
Raymond Billman was the only person other than Petrini charged with homicide
by vehicle while driving drunk.
Billman, a Hazleton bank teller who was 21 at the time of an April 25
two-car crash, pleaded guilty to killing Lawrence Sabol and Tracy McElmoyle.
He was charged May 7, 1993 — or nearly two weeks after the two-car crash.
Two weeks also passed before charges were filed in the Petrini case,
fueling talk the district attorney was bestowing special treatment on the
Nanticoke girl because he golfed at the same country club as her dad.
The district attorney, Peter Paul Olszewski Jr., was offended by such
suggestions. He says he took his time before approving homicide charges in
order to ensure a strong case. When he took office, Olszewski inherited a
number of homicide by DUI cases. He says some of the cases were so weak it was
virtually impossible to sustain a conviction.
He didn’t want Petrini to be able to plead to a lesser charge because of a
lack of evidence by the prosecution.
“It was not as open and shut as the media made out,” Olszewski says. “Two
weeks is perfectly legitimate.”
Chances are
Statistically, most drunken-driving accidents take place on weekends. On
any given Friday or Saturday night, one of every 10 cars is driven by a drunk,
says Stefanie Wolownik, prevention/education coordinator for the Wyoming
Valley Drug & Alcohol Services Inc. of Kingston.
Petrini was partying on a weeknight, dancing with friends at the Woodlands
Inn & Resort in Plains Township. The accident occurred a half-hour after the
bar’s 2 a.m. closing time on a Thursday morning.
“Everyone has a few too many, but they make it home OK. That’s why everyone
keeps going out,” Wolownik says. “They think `I made it home all right this
week. I’ve made it home all right the last 10 years. I’ll make it home
tonight.’ ”
While drunken driving continues to be a problem locally, the amount of
alcohol people are drinking before getting behind the wheel has dropped in
Luzerne County.
In 1992, the average blood-alcohol content of drivers tested was 0.22 — or
more than double the legal limit. This year, the average was 0.20.
Drunken drivers are getting caught.
Between January and July of 1993, the county courts disposed of 1,035
driving under-the-influence cases, either through guilty pleas, the
Accelerated Rehabilitation Disposition program or criminal trials, according
to the district attorney’s office. Entering the rehabilitation program is not
an admission of guilt and usually takes about a year. Afterwards, the charges
are dismissed.
During the same six-month period in 1992, the courts disposed of 918 such
cases. Charges brought in one year may end up in court during a different
calendar year.
Olszewski estimates drunken driving-cases comprise between one-third and
one-half of the court log.
The increased number of DUI court cases recently prompted President Judge
Patrick J. Toole Jr. to order a separate trial list for drunken-driving cases.
The new policy of segregating such cases starts Feb. 7 and is expected to
speed up processing.
“We prosecute vigorously,” Olszewski says. “The numbers don’t lie.”
To what degree?
Typically, drunken driving is viewed one of two ways.
Some law-enforcement officials consider it the worst offense possible and
tout mandatory prison sentences. Others argue it’s a non-violent offense.
Sending drunken drivers to prison, they argue, only takes up valuable cell
space needed for hard-core criminals.
Most drunken drivers don’t get arrested the first time out, says to Jim
Hedlund of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“The odds of getting arrested are pretty low,” he says. “The first time
they get arrested is often not the first time they drove drunk.”
When they are caught, drunken drivers face mandatory jail time. But drunken
drivers can plead to a lesser charge or a judge can impose house arrest if the
defendant is accepted into a drug and alcohol treatment program.
A second offense carries a mandatory minimum of confinement of 30 days. A
third offense requires 90 days’ confinement and a fourth offense one year
incarceration.
A court advocate evaluates each case, and recommends sentences to the judge
based on past criminal history, job status, family.
Judge Toole says defendants have nothing to lose and everything to gain by
requesting a jury trial, which is one reason for the crowded docket.
Defense attorneys, he says, often argue the blood-alcohol test was not
properly administered or, if a test wasn’t given, that the police officer was
mistaken in his assessment of their client’s drunken condition.
State law requires drivers who refuse to take the test to automatically
lose their driver’s license for one year.
Petrini faces a maximum of 12 years in state prison — a mandatory minimum
of three years and a maximum of six years for each life. Generally, judges
sentence defendants to serve their sentences concurrently, which has the
effect of reducing the length of time served.
Stiffer penalties, according to Wilkes-Barre Township Sgt. Stanley
Szczupski, who investigated the Petrini case, “are a deterrent, quite a
deterrent.”
Olszewski expects Petrini’s arrest to serve notice that no one is immune to
the law.
“Any member of the public, no matter what his or her lot in life, this case
must have opened their eyes,” Olszewski says.
“They must be saying `That could be me.’ ”
FOR PAGE 1A
TIMES LEADER FILE PHOTO
Caroline Petrini, with attorney John Moses, leaves her preliminary hearing
on charges of homicide by vehicle while driving drunk
For 16A
TIMES LEADER FILE PHOTO
Caroline Petrini, at bottom, earned the title of `Most Unique’ the year she
graduated high school
TIMES LEADER FILE PHOTO
This 1986 photo of Caroline Petrini was taken from the John S. Fine High
School yearbook