WHY IS THIS SIX-TIME ALLEGED DWI OFFENDER STILL DRIVING?

After being charged by police six times for drunk driving over a span of less than two years, the most obvious question is: why is Alexander Correa, 23, still being allowed to climb behind the wheel of a car? Correa was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) during the early morning hours of March 2nd after crashing his Volvo into the back of an Edinburg ISD school bus near the corner of Jackson and 17 ½ mile. There were 10 students aboard the bus when the crash occurred. Thankfully, no injuries were reported. Correa’s bond was initially set at $50,000 by Edinburg Municipal Court Judge “Terry” Palacios. But thanks to a request made by the district attorney’s office, his bond was revoked. But with four DWIs pending at the time of his arrest, (one had been previously dismissed,) why can’t Hidalgo County’s judicial system better protect the public and shield them from (alleged) repeat drunk-driving offenders such as Alexander Correa? Not to mention kids aboard a school bus? “That’s the question everyone should be asking,” said Hidalgo County District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez, when questioned by The Advance during a phone interview last week. “This is the type of case, if we had had knowledge that this person had so many DWIs pending, we would have doubled what we did. Once we found out, right off the bat, we asked that his bond be revoked.” Rodriguez said that after he assumed office Jan. 1 of this year, he found out that there are more than 13,000 misdemeanor cases pending in Hidalgo County. At this point in time, Rodriguez said he’s not sure how many of those pertain to drunk driving or how many include people charged with multiple counts of driving drunk. Once his office can comb through those approximate 13,000 misdemeanor cases, county prosecutors can better focus on them so a crash like the one that happened in Edinburg two weeks ago has less of a chance of re-occurrence. “If we had known about this case (Alexander Correa),” said Rodriguez, “known that he had so many DWI cases pending (four), we would have asked that his previous bonds be revoked.” So what can be done to prevent these sorts of things from happening again? “Well, for example, based on what he has pending, we have to go back and try and pull these cases out. If we had found this case beforehand, we could have avoided him having this accident. But that’s what we’re having to deal with.” Rodriguez said that his misdemeanor prosecutors and his staff are trying to work as hard and as fast as they can to be able to get to these cases and usher them through the court system as quickly as possible. “But it’s just too many of them for us to get our hands on them rather quickly.” Asked what would be different if he had been DA during the past four years with regard to alleged repeat-DWI offenders, Rodriguez said, “Well, we’ve sat down with all of the county-court-at-law judges and stressed to them, ‘Look, this is what we want to do, and this is why we want to do it.’ Meaning, target the repeat offenders and get them off Valley roads. The new district attorney said he thinks he and his staff have a better communication now with the judges as to how Hidalgo County can attack this problem (clearing repeat DWI offenders from the system). “I’m not throwing any judge under the bus, and I’m not saying it’s (their) fault. It’s just a matter of (now) having a system that’s more respective and more efficient so that we can be able to dispose of these cases as quickly as possible.” If the system were working perfectly, what would, could and should have happened to a guy like Alexander Correa? “This guy, this would have been a felony DWI,” said Rodriguez. “And being a felony DWI, then obviously we could have taken a more aggressive approach as opposed to him having just a misdemeanor.” In Texas, a third DWI conviction turns the misdemeanor into a felony. In the case of Correa, who ran his Volvo into the back of a school bus, he had one prior charge dismissed and four DWI's pending, so that’s why he was still on the road. With a DWI misdemeanor, the offender can lose his or her license for a certain amount of time, including infinity, according to Rodriguez. But if it’s a felony conviction, he said, Correa’s driver’s license would have been suspended for a much longer time. “And obviously, he’d be looking at prison time or some (serious court-ordered) rehabilitation.” Asked why there are approximately 13,000 misdemeanor cases still pending in the Hidalgo County court system, Ricardo Rodriguez said it’s just based on the sheer numbers. “It could be, we need more county-court-atlaw judges to be able to handle this volume of cases. And then, too, I feel that it will help that now there is more of an aggressive approach to be able to alert (the judges) and identify these types of cases (multiple offenders). Because, again, it’s hard when you’re behind 13,000 cases to ever catch up, much less deal with the new cases coming in.” In Hidalgo County, there are eight court-at-law judges, but only seven deal with criminal matters. “And it’s not to say that the judges aren’t concerned about these guys (like Alexander Correa), because yes they are. But what we’re going to do is, we’re just going to work with them more in the sense of trying and get these cases up to speed. Especially the DWIs, so that we can focus on those type of cases and (hopefully) avoid these types of instances from happening.” Two weeks ago, according to Rodriguez, the DA’s office asked the court that Alexander Correa remain in custody until his April court date. That request was granted.