Katie Steele-Danner, Gov. Jay Nixon’s Director of Economic Development, has refused to take a breathalyzer tests on TWO seperate occasions after being stopped by law enforcement for “erratic driving.”

After printing the tragic story of the Layton family in Sunday’s Post Dispatch, they have followed up today with an editorial on the lax enforcement and the heartache repeat offenders cause innocent families.

As Jeremy Kohler and Joe Mahr reported in Sunday’s Post-Dispatch, Nick Layton survived long enough to blow a kiss to his wife, Shelley Layton, in a trauma room at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Crystal City.Mssrs. Kohler’s and Mahr’s story on Sunday focused on the enduring pain of one tragedy: A young mother left to raise two daughters on her own, daughters who have only photographs to remind them of the huge, gentle man who was their daddy.

In May of this year, Whitaker, now 47, of Ironton, pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular murder and to being a persistent DWI offender. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

He had a long record of traffic offenses, including three previous DWI arrests. Because of plea deals and foul-ups, the closest he came to jail was 30 days of house arrest after running a father and his 13-year-old son off the road in Chesterfield in 2005.

In that case, he pleaded guilty to two counts of DWI vehicular assault, a class C felony that carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison on each count. In a plea deal, he received a suspended imposition of sentence, house arrest and five years’ probation. Reasons are unclear why a previous DWI charge and suspended imposition of sentence in St. Francois County didn’t disqualify him from a second SIS.

Related:

Governor Holds Drunk Driving Summit. Can You Say Hypocrisy?

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