Lawmaker: Repeat DWI Offender Shows Holes In System

Family and friends of 17-year-old Laura Fortenberry gathered in her memory on Thursday.

The teen was killed in a crash on Dallas-Cherry Highway on Sunday. Howard Pasour, who has been charged with DWI and second-degree murder, crossed the center line and hit the car Fortenberry was riding in head-on, police said.

“It's a heart-wrenching deal,” Pastor Austin Rammell said on Thursday. “Mommas aren't supposed to bury their children.”

The DWI charge stemming from the crash that killed Fortenberry is Pasour’s fourth. He was convicted of the previous three DWI charges and had his license revoked after the most recent one, in May 2008. He was charged with driving without a license in April.

“Our justice system needs to change,” Fortenberry’s friend, Mirada Hill, said. “Laura would still be here.”

Cleveland County Rep. Tim Moore said Pasour’s case shows a serious problem.

“[It] shows that there are still holes in the system,” he said.

Moore said he wants those holes closed and is preparing to introduce a bill at the next session that would allow prosecutors to file habitual DWI charges after the second offense.

“Folks have to know this is a serious crime and it should not end up the way that it just did,” he said.

After Pasour’s second offense, he received a 37-day jail stay. If he had been convicted as a habitual drunken driver, he would have gotten a minimum one-year prison sentence.

After his third DWI conviction, Pasour was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet that monitored alcohol levels in his sweat. However, state law prohibits judges from putting the monitoring devices on serious DWI offenders for more than 60 days, and Pasour was allowed to remove the device in January.

Moore said he thinks that needs to change.

“Make it a year, two years -- whatever it takes,” he said.

Previous Stories: July 27, 2010: Judge Sets Bond At $4M For Driver In Fatal Crash July 26, 2010: Man Charged With Second-Degree Murder In Crash