Justice hard to find for DUI victims

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

It isn't a cloud over her head. Nothing so buoyant, so graceful, so small. It's a weight that she carries. But not like stone. Stone doesn't wrap itself around you; stone doesn't bleed. She carries the weight of a child, her child, 25 pounds, 36 inches, 22 months old.

He had blond hair and a tinkly laugh, and he grew in her womb and even when she was nine months pregnant and heavy, her stomach huge, she felt light compared to how she feels now. Now even her fingernails feel heavy on her hands.

Todd Slocum has been dead 20 months. Some nights she dreams about him. Some nights she dreams his smell, the hair on his arms, feels him wrap around her.

But then she wakes and only his scent remains, and the phantom weight of memories.

The man who allegedly killed Todd - she has to say "allegedly killed" for the man is innocent until proven guilty, hasn't been jailed yet.

According to police reports, that man blasted out of his driveway, across a street, up over a curb, blowing out his rear tires, never stepping on the brake, running down the child. He's still driving around. He hasn't been jailed a day.

Todd had just come from the backyard, with the babysitter, through the gate, pushing his yellow plastic lawnmower, brmmm, brmmmm, brmmm. The day was hot and sunny, Oct. 16, 1990. The place: a quiet street in Melrose. Todd was pretending the grass was getting shorter where he walked. Todd was smiling.

If only it had rained that day, he wouldn't have been playing outside.

If only he had stayed in the backyard a minute longer.

If only Robert Donahue hadn't gone out, hadn't gotten into his car, hadn't been drinking.

These are Todd's mother's if-onlys.

Todd’s parents expected justice. Cheryl and Lee Slocum expected that by now their son's alleged killer would be in jail. They didn't know that this game of semantics is just a tiny part of a bigger, more insidious game.

Donahue admitted to police he had been drinking. A half-drunk bottle of vodka was found in a paper bag in the front seat of his car.

And a child was dead. What more was needed to get this guy locked up?

A lot more.

Donahue was arrested at the scene of the crime. He was never given a Breathalyzer. Requiring a person to be tested for blood alcohol content is illegal in this state. Even if that person injures or kills someone.

Donahue was arraigned before a judge who had himself been censured by the state Supreme Court for a drunk driving incident.

He was released on bail. He retired from the Somerville police department, where he had been an officer for 25 years.

He hired Al Johnson, the attorney of choice for drunk drivers who can afford him. Johnson and Donahue have now had nearly two years to prepare a defense, which no doubt will center around some impediment, not in Donahue, but in his car.

Todd would be three and a half now, in pre-school, learning to read, way past the plastic lawnmower stage. But this isn't important. What is is stretching out time, delaying, obfuscating, manipulating, filing motions to suppress, objecting to the introduction of any truth which could lead to the imprisonment of a man who caused the death of a little boy.

"This is how the system works," Todd's mother says, speaking out after months of silence. "The defendant has the right to a speedy trial which he can waive, which he did waive. But we have no rights. The law distorts the truth. You take it and take it because you're afraid that if you say something, it will jeopardize everything. Todd's death was so horrible. The only thing we can do for him is to get some modicum of justice. But I'm afraid we won't even get that."

It wasn't until seven months after Todd's death that Donahue was finally indicted on charges of manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide, operating under the influence of alcohol, and operating to endanger. Two months later, on July 31, 1991, a pre-trial hearing was scheduled but then postponed because the defense attorney didn't show up. A month after that the hearing was postponed again, this time because the defense attorney was ill.

On Oct. 23, the hearing took place. Its main purpose was to suppress certain evidence that might incriminate Donahue. The defense attorney argued that conversations Donahue had with police officers at the scene of the crime, relative to his drinking, should not be admissible.

In November, Todd's parents were told that the trial would begin Dec. 2. Then they were told Dec. 10. Then it was postponed to January. In January the date was moved again to "around the middle of March." In March they were told April 6. The latest date is June 15.

"Each time there's a delay it's like being wounded again," Cheryl says. "I want this trial to begin. I want something to happen."

She wants justice for the 25 pound, 36 inch, 22 month old who was her whole world, whose love filled her life.