On the morning he pleaded guilty to drunken driving, Kenneth J. Davis made a promise to DuPage County Circuit Court Judge C. Andrew Hayton.
"It won't happen again, sir," he vowed in April 1984.
Three months later, the 21-year-old Naperville man broke his promise. He was drunk, police said, and driving on a suspended license when he was pulled over in Cook County.
The early arrests would prove not youthful indiscretions but rather a pattern that demonstrates that Davis became a menace behind the wheel.
Over a 16-year period, he would rack up a dozen DUI convictions in Illinois.
That tally makes him among the worst repeat offenders in Northern Illinois among those examined in a Daily Herald analysis. The paper studied complete records of drivers with multiple DUI court actions from 1996 to 1999.
Davis' license was revoked twice in 1984 as a result of DUIs. In 1995 he was charged with DUI on April 3, June 28 and Sept. 30. All resulted in convictions. He was arrested on DUI charges twice in 1996 and had single arrests in five other years.
Davis' family members and friends concede it's extremely fortunate he has not killed someone. Now 37, Davis' first license revocation from a DUI conviction occurred when he was 18.
He has been in and out of alcohol-treatment programs.
He is far from alone.
Repeat offenders make up about a third of all people arrested for drunken driving nationally, and one of eight drunken drivers in fatal crashes has had a prior DUI, the National Commission Against Drunk Driving reports.
The group estimates 80 percent of chronic drunken drivers continue to do so after license suspensions, and jail alone is an ineffective deterrent.
Davis, who now lives in St. John, Ind., declined requests to be interviewed for this story.
But those who know him best offer a sympathetic profile of a man long struggling to overcome alcoholism. They are hard-pressed to explain why he continually drinks and drives.
"I can't really tell you why," said his mother, Joan Davis, of Sugar Grove. "I don't even think he knows why. If he knew, he could probably do something about it.
"He feels awful when he messes up. He is so thankful he never hurt anyone. He is just a person who can't handle personal confrontation. When something goes wrong, he drinks."
On the road again
The earliest of Davis' DUI offenses that could be found in court records occurred in Naperville in 1983.
Davis pleaded guilty a year later and was sentenced to one year of probation.
After being arrested in Cook County just three months later, that probation was revoked. Within a month, though, he was out of jail on bond and back on the road again.
In some arrests, the police officer noted the driver couldn't sign his own name on the complaint or "stand or walk without assistance," much less operate a vehicle.
"He really is an extremely nice guy. But he gets real depressed, like that's it, what else have I got in life," said best friend Dave Kubik, also of St. John, Ind. "He says, 'I know, I know, you've got to stop me from doing it again.'"
Davis was arrested for DUI on April 21, 1996, after he crashed his Mercury station wagon in Elburn.
The arresting officer noted Davis "spilled beer on himself" and refused to take field-sobriety tests. His blood-alcohol level was .20, more than twice the legal intoxication limit of .08, records show.
In Cook County, Davis was arrested Nov. 23, 1996, by Illinois State Police after he drove his 1987 Ford into a concrete barrier on Interstate 294 near Hinsdale.
Police in La Grange arrested him Oct. 27, 1997, when he turned from Burlington Road aiming for La Grange Road but instead ended up on a set of railroad tracks. His blood-alcohol level was .22, a police report shows.
Davis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges, getting 18 months' probation and one year in county jail despite having had 11 prior DUI convictions, court records show.
With myriad convictions, Davis somehow avoided state prison until an April 1996 arrest in Kane County.
He pleaded guilty to the aggravated DUI charge and in February 1997 was sentenced to two years in prison.
In exchange for the plea, prosecutors in Kane County agreed to drop an earlier 1995 DUI in which Davis blew a .23 on the Breathalyzer after driving off a road in Sugar Grove, reports show. That blood-alcohol content is nearly three times the legal limit.
State officials, however, say they were not told of Kane County's agreement to drop the 1995 charge. A secretary of state official said that conviction is still on Davis' record.
Davis was released from Robinson Correctional Center in July 1997.
Prisoners in Illinois serve only half their sentence unless they're convicted of more violent crimes. Davis also received credit for time spent in jail while awaiting trial.
Experts say repeat offenders like Davis often go through the courts in cycles, serving short stints in jail. The exception is if they maim or kill someone.
The revolving-door justice outrages anti-drunk driving advocates.
"These are the people who are going to kill someone," said Patricia Larson of Schaumburg-based Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists. "They're a crash waiting to happen. No one should have 12 DUIs. They should be in prison."
Another Edison
From the time her son was a toddler, Joan Davis said she knew he was different than her seven other children.
He crawled faster, talked earlier and was far more independent than the others.
The family moved from New York to Naperville when he was a child. Davis was educated in Naperville Unit District 203 and earned his GED from Naperville Central High School.
"I just knew this kid was another Thomas Edison," she said. "He was absolutely brilliant and could figure out anything - still does. You just knew when he was little he was going to be really, really good or really, really bad."
She first noticed a drinking problem when he was 16. The son she called a "genius" also wasn't doing well in school. She took him to counselors and psychiatrists to figure out what was wrong.
Unlike many substance abusers, Joan Davis said her family has no history of alcoholism. Her other children do not suffer from the same disease.
She offers one traumatic childhood problem as a possible reason for her son's alcoholic bouts.
Davis, who suffers from dyslexia, wasn't diagnosed until he was 16. His mother theorizes the frustration and isolation he felt as an adolescent led to his problems.
In arrest after arrest, his family and Kubik bailed him out of jail.
His family even helped pay for defense attorneys in the beginning and visited him while he went through a renowned substance-abuse treatment program at St. Mary's Health Center in Detroit Lakes, Minn.
After years of heartache, Joan Davis said the family no longer offers a crutch.
"It's a killer. We all love him to death," she said. "But we know there's nothing else we can do for him."
Today, Davis lives alone in a house he rents from Kubik. His two teen boys live in Naperville with their mother.
Both his mother and Kubik said they fear his most recent recovery attempts are fleeting.
"He really does try but I know he still drinks," Joan Davis said. "He has tried everything and nothing works."
Within the last few months, Davis was arrested yet again by police on suspicion he was drinking. This time, Kubik says, his friend was walking - not driving - down an Indiana street near his home with open beer.
"He did real good for a while," he said. "I'm scared, though, because he's actually slipping back again. It's just a shame. I hate to see it. I care for him. A lot of people do. He's a super guy who'd do anything for you. But he's got a real problem - drinking."
Kenneth J. Davis