Morgue Visit Urged as Drunk-Driver Penalty : Teen-Agers: Supervisors hope to begin a program aimed at prevention in which young offenders see drinking’s deadly effects.

Would drunk teen-agers think twice about driving if they had seen a corpse in a morgue?

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, as well as plenty of people in the Antelope Valley, think so. They hope to bring a pilot project to the desert that would provide teen-age drunk-driving offenders a trip to the county morgue.

The county would model its program after a successful one in Orange County, said Bill Proffitt, a coroner’s investigator in the Antelope Valley.

In that program, more than 400 teen-age offenders have watched doctors from the coroner’s office perform autopsies. Only one has been rearrested on drunk-driving charges, he said.

“This is something that’s real. We’re going to show them real dead bodies,” Proffitt said.

But he added, “I don’t think the intent of the program is to scare them. The intent of the program is to educate them and show them the consequences if they drink and drive.”

Many of the program’s details have yet to be worked out, Proffitt said.

The program will be geared toward first-time drunk-driving offenders 16 to 21 years old. Convicted individuals would volunteer to participate as part of their court proceedings.

Judges could offer this to offenders as an alternative to jail time or a fine, supporters said.

The Board of Supervisors approved the pilot program earlier this month, but it can’t start until funds are raised for a van to transport teen-agers to the morgue downtown, said Sherry Lasagna, a senior deputy in Antonovich’s Antelope Valley office.

KUTY, an Antelope Valley country-Western radio station, is holding a radio auction in November and a softball tournament to raise money for the van, said P. Dale Ware, the station’s vice president and general manager.

As part of the promotion, disc jockeys will broadcast their shows at various locations in the Antelope Valley alongside a burned-out Camaro.

A young drunk driver was recently killed in the car on Palmdale Boulevard, and the youth’s parents have given permission to have the car displayed, Ware said.

Ware said he became interested in the program after watching a recent episode of Geraldo Rivera’s television show, which featured the Orange County program.

The Antelope Valley chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers also supports the proposal, said Becky Bearden, the chapter’s administrator.

“I have heard nothing but good things about the program,” Bearden said.