Omnibus DUI Project
The Institute for Legal, Legislative and Policy Studies (ILLAPS) completed a four-year examination of the DUI statutes under a grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), Division of Traffic Safety, which has resulted in the DUI Sentencing Guidelines, produced in hardcopies and CD-Rom format. Eight (8) statewide training sessions for Illinois Judges and States Attorneys on the use of the DUI Sentencing Guidelines CD have been conducted in computer labs located throughout the state.
Between 1990 and 2002, Illinois had a large volume of DUI and alcohol-related statutes enacted and placed in either the Illinois Vehicle Code (625 ILCS 5/) or the Unified Code of Corrections (730 ILCS 5/). The DUI Omnibus Project (DUI Sentencing Guidelines) was initiated to respond to the passage of an unusually large number of DUI laws. In some cases, a newly enacted law was placed in both codes. In 2002 the judiciary serving on IDOT’s DUI Advisory Council recommended that an omnibus statute be developed with intent to place all DUI penalties in one Code or the other. This recommendation was issued because the judiciary, as well as local State’s Attorneys, were concerned about the uniformity of sentences from county to county. In some of the more complex cases, they were having difficulty determining the appropriate sentence intended by the Legislature. The IDOT, utilizing Highway Safety Funds, issued a grant to the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS) to deal with these complex DUI statues.
The DUI Sentencing Guidelines are the culmination of the efforts of individuals who directly or indirectly assisted in the drafting and passage of Senate Bill 2124, which became Public Act 93-0800, in the 93rd Illinois General Assembly. Public Act 93-0800 consolidated DUI penalties previously contained in the Illinois Vehicle Code and the Unified Code of Corrections and restructured them in Section 11-501 of the Illinois Vehicle Code.
This grant was initiated on October 1, 2002. Early products produced under this grant included: Completion of a literature search pertaining to Illinois DUI laws and associated sentencing decisions; Submission of legislation (Senate Bill 2124) combining appropriate portions of existing statues for legislative consideration (Public Act 93-0800); Support of legislation (House Bill 743) renumbering subsections of P.A. 93-800. HB-743 became P.A. 93-1093; Passage of Senate Bill 2124 by the 93rd Illinois General Assembly and the signing into law by Governor Blagojevich; Development of flow charts for the violations of the provisions as amended by SB-2124.
The original project focus was to develop a set of paper flow charts and DUI Sentencing Guidelines Penalty Statements. This “paper copy” of the project was a substantial undertaking with 12 massive charts and over 800 pages of Penalty Statements. Because of the expense and the cumbersomeness of the paper version, the Institute for Legal and Policy Studies created a CD-Rom version of the DUI Sentencing Guidelines. This CD contains electronically navigated flowcharts and penalty statements in a highly accessible and searchable PDF format.
Beginning in the summer of 2005, ILAPS distributed the DUI Sentencing Guidelines CD to Judges and States Attorneys through half-day training sessions held around the state. The participants in these training sessions were taught to use the DUI Sentencing Guidelines CD ROM, which contains a navigable PDF format, 12 flowcharts, and over 800 pages of sentencing statements. During 2005 and 2006, ILAPS conducted a total of eight DUI Sentencing Guidelines Training sessions that were geographically situated in Illinois for easy access to the training sites. The DUI Sentencing Guidelines Training taught participants to use the DUI Sentencing Guidelines CD and instructions were supplied on updated material, along with detailed information on how to navigate through the complex sentencing structure of the DUI laws.
During the course of fiscal years 2005 through 2006 ILAPS produced a total of 530 DUI Sentencing Guidelines CDs and 330 Training manuals. As of September 30, 2006, ILAPS had distributed 455 DUI Sentencing Guidelines CDs, and 307 manuals. Manuals and CDs were distributed at each of the training sessions, and participants were encouraged to take additional manuals and CDs and train their co-workers with the provided information. Additionally, many Judges and States Attorneys across the State of Illinois who were unable to attend the training sessions heard about the DUI Sentencing Guidelines CDs from their associates, and requested the manual and CD from ILLAPS.
For more information on this project, please contact Bekky Grosboll at (217) 206-6348 or rlanp01s@uis.edu.