11th DUI conviction doesn’t make him ‘evil incarnate’

My name is Lana Dramstad and Jon Scott Stimson is my husband.

Your paper has run several articles recently regarding his arrest and conviction for DUI. You have portrayed him as evil incarnate, and I would just like to tell you a little bit more about him.

Jon has a family who loves him.

He provided for that family. He went to work every day, whether he felt like it or not. He has five children who love him and miss him terribly.

He has a mother who is disabled.

He visited her every single day to make sure she was OK and had everything she needed.

I am not excusing his behavior.

Driving under the influence is inexcusable, no matter who you are.

But do you know how many alcoholic beverages it takes an average person to register over the legal limit of 0.08? It is affected by a number of things, but on average, for a man, three beers in 90 minutes will put him just below the legal limit. Three beers and a shot will put him over. For the average woman, it is even less. Two beers within 90 minutes will put her at about 0.077. That "one more for the road" will put her over (http:// http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/ pubs/aclimit.pdf). How many of your readers have consumed that much in that amount of time and still felt "OK to drive?"

Jon is not guilty of anything many of us have not done, many times on a regular basis. He just gets caught. A lot. His 11 DUIs have been accumulated over the course of 31 years. And let's look at Judge Rice's record on DUI convictions.

Recently, there have been a number of them through his court. Several of them with multiple felony DUIs just like Jon. Most of them were sentenced to five years or less. If we're going to get tough on DUIs, let's do so with some consistency, shall we?

Jon was sentenced to the same amount of time given to an individual who got drunk, stole his employer's truck, led law enforcement on a high-speed chase, crashed up someone else's car and assaulted a peace officer.

An individual who killed a man while driving drunk last fall had his bond reduced and was released on electronic monitoring. Jon was driving approximately 10 miles over the posted speed limit. His blood alcohol concentration was just barely above the legal limit. He cooperated with peace officers and went to jail without incident. While I understand that it is only by the grace of God that he has never killed or injured anyone, I'm having a hard time understanding why his crime requires 20 years of supervis ion by the Depar tment of Corrections while others with the same crimes require only five.

Lana Dramstad Havre