Husband's 'Not the Same Boy'

The dead woman's husband, Daniel Dirago, a 29-year-old machinist, has suffered greatly, his parents say. ''He's gone for treatments, but he's not the same boy anymore,'' his father said.

Mr. Corbin lives across the Hudson River, in the Dutchess County town of Wappingers Falls. He is his early 40's and works as an inspector at I.B.M.'s semi-conductor development and manufacturing site in East Fishkill.

Mr. Corbin lives with his wife, Joyce, in a modest pale-green ranch house on a dead-end street. He did not return phone calls to his home and office. In the drunken-driving case, he was fined $350 and his license was suspended. He has a civil suit pending against him.

Mr. Corbin is pained by the episode, his lawyer, Stephen L. Greller, said. ''Mr. Corbin will live with that for the rest of his life,'' he said.

Mr. Grady, the Dutchess County District Attorney, said it would be ''an understatement to say he was extremely disappointed'' by the Supreme Court ruling. ''I will always have a bad feeling in my stomach about this case,'' he said. ''Obviously, if you could roll back the clock, you would do many things differently, but you can't and you have to live with the consequences.''

Unaware of Fatality

Mr. Grady said mistakes were made at the outset. An assistant district attorney, he said, was working on Mr. Corbin's traffic charges without realizing that a fatality was involved and that another prosecutor was preparing the homicide case for a grand jury. The two prosecutors failed to communicate, Mr. Grady said, and also failed to find out when Mr. Corbin was scheduled to appear before the La Grange town justice on the traffic charges.

As a result, Mr. Corbin showed up with his lawyer and pleaded guilty to the traffic violations without mentioning an accident or a death to the town justice, Edmund V. Caplicki. Had an assistant district attorney been present or called the judge in advance, the arraignment could have been adjourned.