To hear some of the municipal officials of southwestern Butler County question it, the proposed countywide DUI court would be the very acme of inefficiency.

Chief among their complaints is the projected man-hours lost to travel and waiting for hearings in the central location, presumably in or near Butler. “It is much quicker going to the (local) magistrate,” said one police officer. “I believe it would cost the township a significant amount if it were to go to the county courthouse.”

The same officer, who won’t be named here, speaks about the advantage of conducting DUI hearings at the local magisterial court. It’s a highly efficient system, in part, because of local familiarity and informality.

“Normally, people show up a little bit early,” the officer said. “I can talk to them. If we can come to an agreement, we’re out of there sometimes before the hearing is even supposed to occur.”

OK, that sounds like efficiency, and maybe it’s justice as well.

However, before concluding that it would be sheer inefficiency to replace local DUI hearings with a countywide DUI court, put yourself in the judge’s seat.

If you were William Shaffer, the judge overseeing this county’s justice system, you might ask yourself: is the court being accountable — is the judge being accountable — to the public who put him in this position?

Consider just one case that occurred last week before Shaffer. The case involved a wreck with horrendous injuries.

A Connoquenessing woman who was left permanently scarred in the crash two years ago confronted the driver at his sentencing. She was one of two women injured in that wreck.

According to previous news and police reports, firefighters used a hydraulic rescue tool to cut off the roof and doors to free the women. A medical helicopter whisked one of the women to Allegheny General Hospital for life-saving surgery.

The defendant was uninjured. He denied consuming alcohol that day, but a certified drug recognition expert determined he was under the influence of drugs. He was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital for a blood test. It was determined he had heroin in his system.

“I was very angry at you when I realized how hurt I was,” the woman told the defendant. “I had to learn to walk again. I have both mental and physical scars that I hope will heal in time.”

Shaffer sentenced him to five years of intermediate punishment for two counts of aggravated assault by vehicle while driving under the influence and driving under the influence of a controlled substance. He ordered the defendant to spend the first 354 days of his intermediate punishment in jail followed by six months of house arrest. For driving under the influence of a controlled substance, he must also serve 50 hours of community service, pay a $1,000 fine and pay $667 in restitution.

Are you still imagining yourself in the judgment seat? If so, consider the difference between this particular case, which involves serious injury, and other cases which do not. In a very large sense, the non-crash DUI incidents are exactly the same as DUI incidents that do end in wrecks. All of them are like a huge lottery, with one number as likely to be called as any other.

The defendant in last week’s case has no prior record of DUI arrest, which means that if it had not been for the wreck with injuries, he would have been just another DUI offender, speaking briefly and informally with a police officer or prosecutor at a local magistrate’s court — a first offense eligible for accelerated rehabilitative disposition (ARD) and optimistic about having the offense expunged from his record.

The only mitigating factor was that wreck; the injured women; the aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI charges.

And that brings us back to the officer’s comment about the efficiency of conducting business at the local magistrate’s office.

It’s a given that justice should be prompt. But justice must foremost be just.

Superefficiency should never be the primary objective of a DUI court. Keeping impaired drivers off the highways should always be the primary objective.

— TAH