‘Shock Treatment’ for Drunk Drivers: Visiting a Morgue

Convicted drunk drivers in Judge Floyd H. Schenk’s court may be in for a sobering experience.

The West Orange County Municipal Court jurist is ordering young offenders to spend three hours at the county morgue and 10 hours at a hospital trauma center in addition to the standard penalties of three years’ probation, restrictions on driving and a $740 fine.

And to seal the message, Schenk also requires participants in his program to write a 1,000-word essay about their experience.

On Thursday, just before he would preside over another drunk-driving trial, Schenk called his approach a form of shock therapy as well as a cost-free alternative to jail.

“I’m hoping young people who have received this sentence will have serious thoughts about ever driving under the influence again,” he said. “Very few people actually see the terrible, really horrible situations of people who are injured by those who are driving while under the influence. . . . They are going to have the opportunity to see the results of a person driving under the influence.”

Only first-time offenders ages 18-21 are eligible for the sentence. Schenk, 63, said he wanted to focus on first-time offenders who are “impressionable.”

Second-time offenders who face Schenk in court go to jail, he said.

Since mid-July, Schenk has meted out this unusual sentence to eight young people. His first two subjects will begin serving their time tonight and Saturday at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital’s emergency room from 10 p.m to 3 a.m.--hours that one emergency room physician called “prime time for people involved in drunk driving.”

Schenk apparently jumped the gun on a new state program, the Youthful Drunk Driver Visitation Program signed into law by Gov. George Deukmejian on July 23.

The bill authorizes courts to order youthful offenders to visit emergency rooms, coroner’s offices and alcohol treatment programs as part of their probation.

Schenk said he knew about the bill but started planning his own program three months ago and began the sentencing a week or more before the law went into effect.

Schenk is apparently the first judge in Southern California to impose the unusual sentence, said Mike Mahoney, administrative aide to Assemblyman William Duplissea (R-San Carlos), who introduced the bill. A Sacramento municipal court judge, Jeffrey Gunther, has been handing out similar sentences for two years, Mahoney said.

Schenk said the reaction to the program--from other judges, sheriff’s deputies and the district attorney’s office--has been positive. Janet Carter, director of the Orange County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also said she was impressed.

“I think it’s great,” she said. “When you realize the prime candidate for drunk driving is the 19-year-old male, you do have to do something. You have to realize these are young adults who don’t believe they’re going to die.”

Tonight, if the emergency room is busy, Fountain Valley physician Dr. Stephen Morenz said Schenk’s first candidates may see “four to five drunks and four to five drunk-driving victims,” with wounds ranging from cuts to head injuries.

During any lull in the action, a nursing supervisor will take the two young people to an intensive-care ward to observe a coma patient and possibly meet families of patients with long-term brain injuries, said Anita Bantle, Fountain Valley’s assistant administrator of nursing services.

Also included in Schenk’s sentence is a visit to the county morgue in Santa Ana. Convicted drunk drivers will not see any bodies, chief deputy coroner James Beisner said, but they will meet with a deputy coroner and view photographs of fatal accidents.

“We’re not putting on a horror show,” Beisner said, “but we will discuss with them the consequences of continued alcohol abuse.”

He said his staff was volunteering to do this “because we believe in the program. It will probably serve as a deterrent” to drunk driving.

Bantle agreed. “I’m really excited about it. Hopefully, it will give people the opportunity to see the outcome of what could happen when they are driving under the influence.”

Schenk is hoping for results. In his two years on the bench, “I’ve sentenced an awful lot of drunk drivers,” he said, but the first-time offenders don’t usually go to jail.

With this new program, “I think they’re going to be impressed, and they’re not going to drink and drive anymore,” Schenk said.