A Eudora man was led off in handcuffs Thursday after a judge sentenced him to a year in jail for his eighth DUI conviction, the harshest sentence yet for the repeat offender with a history of drunken driving dating back two decades.

Some people view the case of 58-year-old Edward L. Osterhout — one of many repeat driving under the influence cases pending in Douglas County District Court — as evidence that a tougher Kansas law passed in 2001 didn’t do enough to solve the problem of habitual drunken drivers on the state’s roads.

Under the law, the maximum sentence for drunken driving is one year in the county jail, regardless whether the same driver has been nabbed eight, 10 or even 20 times.

“This defendant has never been able to take the drinking and driving apart from one another,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Angela Wilson said at Osterhout’s sentencing. “He apparently has not had a sufficient punishment to make him stop doing that.”

Others say the case just shows how complex a challenge it is to keep drunken drivers off the roads, short of locking them up for years at a time, a punishment they say is too harsh and will leave them likely to relapse once they get out.

“I think, probably right now the penalties are stiff enough,” said Max Sutherland, state administrator of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “Somehow those people need to be incorporated into the system for intensive supervision, probation, treatment, job training, whatever. That seems to be what is the most promising down the road.”

But Sutherland said he thought such methods weren’t being applied as much as they should be across the state.

And a study out late last year from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ranked Kansas 10th in the nation by alcohol-related deaths per mile driven in 2002, up from 29th in 1998. It was the second-largest increase in such fatalities during the study period.

Suspended license

Osterhout was driving on a suspended driver’s license when he was stopped in November 2003. He received an additional one-year sentence Thursday from Judge Robert Fairchild for driving while suspended.

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According to court records, Osterhout’s first DUI was in 1985 in Shawnee County. He racked up four more charges before appearing before Fairchild on a 2000 case. But because that case arose before a toughening of Kansas laws in 2001, some of the earlier DUIs didn’t count against him. Fairchild sentenced Osterhout to 12 months probation, which he completed without incident.

In March 2003, after another DUI arrest, Fairchild sentenced Osterhout to 30 days in jail but let him out for a work-release program after he served 48 hours. That case was charged only as a second-time DUI, in part because a clerical problem kept prosecutors from knowing about all of his recent prior cases.

Osterhout was on probation for the 2003 offense when the latest case arose.

On Thursday, Fairchild also tacked six months onto Osterhout’s sentence for violating probation in the 2003 case.

The repeat offender remained silent in court when Fairchild asked whether he had anything to say before being sentenced. Osterhout’s attorney, Richard Frydman, said his client worked as a handyman and landscaper, had an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and had been attending multiple meetings per week.

“He’s not drinking now, and my client knows what kind of trouble he’s in and will maintain sobriety the rest of his life,” Frydman said.

While Fairchild said he’d allow Osterhout to participate in a jail work-release program, he gave him the maximum sentence possible.

Fairchild refused to allow Osterhout leave from jail to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, saying he could attend the jail’s program.

“I’ve given Mr. Osterhout more than enough chances,” Fairchild said.

Three strikes to felony

Under Kansas law, DUI isn’t a felony until the third offense.

On paper, a third offense carries a minimum $1,500 fine and a minimum of 90 days or up to a year in jail. But a judge can release the offender and put him on house arrest after two days.

The fourth-and-subsequent DUI penalty is similar, except the fine is $2,500 and there’s no house-arrest option. In addition, the person must be supervised for one year afterward by the Kansas Department of Corrections and can be imprisoned for failing to complete the terms of the supervision.

Fourth and subsequent DUI cases are more common than some might think.

This week alone, there were at least three people on the District Court schedule with hearings on such cases. The list included Jeffrey D. Carlson, 31, a Lawrence man charged with hitting a pedestrian last month on 23rd Street. Carlson has three prior drunken-driving convictions.

After the national study last year found the state slipping, Kansas Highway Patrol Lt. John Eichkorn said the biggest problem for law enforcement “is with the repeat offender, people who are constantly back in the system.”

“For that dependent person who, for whatever reason, can’t stop drinking, it’s very difficult for law enforcement,” he said.

Richard Ramos, Lawrence, whose sister, Felicia Bland, was killed by a drunken driver in 2000, said he thought there should be a more severe penalty for people who clearly won’t stop drinking and driving.

“It’s got to be something that people are going to be scared of,” he said. “Obviously, there are not strong enough penalties. There’s no accountability there.”