Mark Allen Warner's 15 Drunken Driving Convictions

There is no other way to look at this.

The habitual failure of the criminal justice system to sentence convicted drunken driver Mark Allen Warner to prison until his 15th conviction is beyond incompetence.

It seems like criminal neglect to me.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

More than 475,000 people in Wisconsin have at least one drunken-driving conviction on their record. Nearly 8,000 have five or more. Just one has 15: Mark Allen Warner of River Falls.

All of them occurred before his 40th birthday.

Throughout the 1990s, Warner's drinking resulted in divorce, a felony record and several crashes. From 1992 to 2000, Warner was pulled over as often as every couple of months and was well-known to police. Yet he avoided significant jail time and treatment for almost a decade - a fact the judge involved in his final case called a failure of the criminal justice system.

...His blood-alcohol level averaged 0.212 - almost three times the legal limit - for the 11 offenses in which his blood or breath test information was available. He repeatedly drove after his license had been revoked, garnering at least 10 arrests for that. And two of his drunken driving arrests followed domestic arguments.

The three-year prison term, including six months in a Department of Corrections rehabilitation facility, helped him get sober, Warner said. He hasn't had a conviction since his release in 2003. Now 45, he once again holds a valid driver's license.

"There comes a point in your life when you say, 'You know, I've got to do something different,' " Warner said.

For him, that point came in the prison treatment program.

The system, with its emphasis on punishment, is ill-equipped to deal with repeat drunken drivers such as Warner, said state appeals court Judge Edward R. Brunner.

"If you see someone being arrested a third time, a fourth time, they're out there driving drunk a hell of a lot, and you've got a problem," Brunner said. "But we're not doing anything to solve the problem."

Warner didn't want to talk about when he started drinking or why, but his ex-wife, Patricia Eddy, said alcohol became a problem for him while he served as a Navy gunner's mate in the 1980s.

"There was a lot of drinking and partying in the military," she said. "They would take off on a six-month cruise to the Philippines, and all they would do is drink."

While stationed in Hawaii, Warner went through Navy-sanctioned alcohol treatment after a crash but didn't take it seriously, she said.

"He went to a class in the evenings and then he went out drinking, pretty much," she said.

Yeah, blame the Navy.

It wasn't until Warner's 15th conviction that he finally was taken off the road and incarcerated.

...St. Croix County Circuit Judge Scott Needham said he had never seen a defendant with so many convictions.

"The criminal justice system, quite frankly, has failed in terms of providing services or rehabilitation to you which was meaningful and which would help you to modify your behaviors," he told Warner. "You have maneuvered your way, apparently, through the system so as to have avoided a felony conviction, so as to avoid significant jail time."

Needham sentenced Warner to three years in prison - to include alcohol treatment - and 4 1/2 years of supervision upon release.

There's no question that the system failed in its duty to protect the public from this dangerous man.

I have no argument with that. It's inexcusable for Warner to have racked up 15 convictions before receiving prison time. Inexcusable.

However, I do have a bit of a problem with the slant of this article.

While the system clearly failed miserably, so did Warner. He's being presented as a victim of a system that didn't provide him with meaningful services and rehabilitation.

Warner is no victim.

It is conceivable that Warner could have straightened up his life and rehabilitated without help from the state.

The criminal justice system wasn't his only avenue to get help for his irresponsible, reckless, potentially life-threatening behavior that put his own safety at risk, as well as the well-being of the community.