A bill aimed at strengthening Alabama’s penalties for DUI-related deaths and hit-and-run crashes received a favorable report this week in the House Judiciary Committee.
House Bill 243, sponsored by Representative Margie Wilcox, R-Mobile, was presented before the committee alongside the parents and relatives of Deviney Rooney and John Wesley Holt, two children from House District 104. Similar legislation has been filed in the Senate by Senator David Sessions, R-Grand Bay, and has been placed back on the calendar.
“Sadly, these children were members of my district,” Wilcox said. “They were both killed in tragic vehicular homicides, and the perpetrators didn’t serve over six months.”
During the hearing, the committee adopted an amendment formally naming the proposal the Deviney Rooney and John Wesley Holt Safe Street Act, a change approved unanimously before discussion returned to the substance of the bill.
District Attorney Keith Blackwood, who worked with Wilcox on the legislation, explained that HB243 addresses two areas of state law: manslaughter involving impaired driving and penalties for leaving the scene of an accident.
Under current law, prosecutors often must rely on criminally negligent homicide charges in DUI death cases, a Class C felony, unless circumstances justify pursuing extreme indifference murder, a Class A felony. Blackwood said that the gap has led to outcomes that defy common sense.
“This bill will place driving while under the influence and causing a death squarely within the manslaughter statute,” Blackwood said. “I think this conduct belongs squarely in the category of reckless. The person knew there was a risk that a death could occur, and they took that risk anyway.”
Blackwood cited the case of Deviney Rooney, in which a jury returned a verdict of criminally negligent homicide. Because of that classification, the defendant faced a lighter sentence than would have applied had the victim survived with serious injuries.
“If Deviney Rooney had survived the crash and sustained serious physical injury, then the defendant would have been facing assault first DUI, which is a class B felony. So, because she died, and criminally negligent homicide while driving under the influence is a Class C felony, the defendant was sentenced less than if she would have lived,” said Blackwood.
The bill would also increase penalties for leaving the scene of an accident when a death occurs, elevating the offense from a Class C felony to a Class B felony. Blackwood argued the current law unintentionally incentivizes intoxicated drivers to flee, noting that the punishment for fleeing can be less severe than staying and facing DUI-related charges.
HB243 would also authorize courts to order restitution to victims’ families in hit-and-run cases involving injury or death. Blackwood said current law does not recognize those individuals as “victims” for restitution purposes, citing a 2001 Court of Criminal Appeals decision that explicitly urged the Legislature to fix the issue.
“It’s a problem that we know about, and it’s a problem we can fix,” Blackwood said. “This bill does that.”
Several lawmakers voiced support for the measure, offering condolences to the Rooney and Holt families and praising Wilcox for bringing the legislation. Representative Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, noted that it had taken nearly 25 years to address the restitution gap identified by the courts.
Before the final vote, Wilcox also relayed thanks from Representative Allen Treadaway, who lost his own daughter to a similar tragedy. The committee voted unanimously to give HB243 a favorable report, sending the measure back to the House of Representatives.
