Rap Sheet Is Long As The Road He Drives

STEVEN MICHE has killed while driving drunk, has been caught and convicted again and again, but he's still out there

Steven Miche killed a 5-year-old boy while driving drunk. He has been convicted of drunken-driving at least four times. He even changed the way King County handles drunken-driving cases.

But Miche, who turns 43 today, is free.

Even his mother, Rose Williams, says he should be locked up. She says she called Everett authorities and told them so.

"My gosh, he killed a boy, didn't he?" Williams says. "It makes you wonder about the law. I don't like going to sleep and worrying that he might be out on the road, drinking and driving."

Just last month, the Renton man was in court for two cases involving alcohol and driving:

-- In an Everett drunken-driving case that prosecutors and the judge barely recall, Miche was given a $425 fine and deferred prosecution.

-- In a Sedro-Woolley case, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for driving with an open bottle of malt liquor and a suspended license.

Miche couldn't be reached for comment. His public defender in the Everett case said she couldn't talk about Miche.

He has a history of skipping court dates and of driving with a suspended license. He has given aliases, such as Steven Williams, that have misled judges.

In May 1988, Miche was arrested twice the same day for driving drunk.

In April 1992, he smashed his car into another vehicle while driving drunk. Miche was sentenced to five days in jail and two years probation.

The next week, he violated his probation by driving with a suspended license. This time, he was ordered to enroll in an alcohol-treatment program and go to Alcoholics Anonymous twice a week.

Two days later, a death

Two days later, Miche killed 5-year-old Alexander Bishop.

In the late afternoon of Nov. 8, 1992, Miche's pickup veered across the center line of a Kent highway and slammed into the Bishop family's car. Alexander, riding in the back seat, took the brunt of the crash. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Miche got out of his truck, handed his keys to a bystander and left. A King County police officer found him walking along a road about 30 minutes later.

He told police he had drunk a couple of malt liquors. A blood sample showed he was drunk, about three times the legal limit that then defined intoxication.

Miche was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, almost three years more than the top of the standard range. He was released from prison in October 1997.

King County District Court changed the way it did business because of Miche. Full driving and state criminal records are now supposed to be provided to judges deciding whether to release someone from jail.

"I've been upset since he got out of jail," his mother says. "I figured after five, six years in jail, he'd learn his lesson."

Washington State Patrol troopers arrested Miche in Everett on March 30, 1998; he was charged with drunken driving and driving with a suspended license. He refused to take a blood-alcohol test.

When Miche skipped a court date, Everett court officials issued a warrant.

Sedro-Woolley police arrested Miche in September on the Everett warrant. He was also charged again with driving with a suspended license. When they stopped him, he had a 22-ounce nearly full bottle of malt liquor on the floor.

Miche pleaded guilty to driving with an open container, having no insurance and having a suspended license. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and fined $1,100.

In November, Miche again skipped his hearing in Everett, so another warrant was issued. In January, he was arrested and jailed.

On March 17, while still in jail, Miche went to a hearing on the Everett charges. Snohomish County District Court Judge Tom Kelly signed a deferred prosecution order, which allows Miche to avoid jail time in exchange for agreeing to enter a two-year alcohol rehabilitation program.

Kelly and two prosecutors who worked on the case say it's often better to put repeat drunken drivers into treatment rather than jail. They say most of the defendants given deferred prosecution are habitual offenders.

But Kelly didn't remember Miche and says his court hearing likely lasted about a minute.

"His name means nothing to me," he says.

Kelly says he signed the order because prosecutors recommended it. Those prosecutors, who also barely recall the case, say Miche qualified for deferred prosecution despite his criminal history.

"I'm sure his vehicular homicide was in our records," says Mark Garka, deputy prosecuting attorney. "All I can say is, he fit within our criteria. That's why we went forward."

But the department's written criteria also say deferred prosecution should be available only to defendants "whose conduct does not demonstrate a manifest danger" to other people.

The two-year probation Miche agreed to includes alcohol treatment, supervision and lie-detector tests, says Cindy Larsen, another deputy prosecutor who worked on the case.

"It's a tough program," Larsen says.

If Miche shows up.

After he was released from jail March 17, Miche was told to report immediately to the clerk's office one block away and meet with a probation officer.

He didn't show up. He has been ordered back to court Wednesday.

His mother isn't sure where he is. When she got back from a vacation Thursday, his voice was on her answering machine, letting her know he was no longer in jail.

"I'm out now," he said.