I just had to share this, from the front page of the Anderson, IN newspaper (July 4, ’03):
35 DUI arrests? 33 license suspensions, including 5 for life? WTF? 
Incidentally, he seems to be fairly well known around that town, because of all of these arrests, and just for the record, he isn’t rich, nor is his family. My initial thought was that perhaps enough money can buy one’s way out of any trouble, but it doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Wow. The mind boggles.
Far be it from me to suggest a vigilante group be formed with tarring and feathering on the agenda…
At some point, say after his 250th arrest, police should have been granted powers to shoot him on sight.
Me, I’m more curious about the 5 suspensions for life. I’m having trouble with a judge who looks at a file and says, “I see here you’ve had 4 life suspensions of your driving privilege. So I’m gonna add one more…”
It’s also nice to know that in Indiana, you can close in on 400 arrests and not be considered an habitual offender…
True. I guess the lesson here is, if you’re going to fuck up royally and frequently, Indiana is the place to do it and get away with it.
At some point (and five lifetime suspensions of one’s driver’s license certainly seems to qualify), a judge should be able to determine that the individual in question is knowingly endangering the lives of others by repeatedly driving under the influence. The offender should be convicted for attempted first degree murder and be done with it.
The hole in the law is…
Indiana, like most of the lower 48, has serious drunk driving laws. Those laws take away your license, fine you, jail you, and make you a felon. The one thing they do not do, however, is keep you from owning and purchasing a car. You can suspend an arbitrary license or right, but as long as a means to violate the law lay at hand, people like this one will habitually violate it.
I know there are stricter laws elsewhere about vehicle ownership, and I’m not sure where, but one thing I do know, Indiana’s not one of them.
How can you suspend “for life” a driver’s license FIVE times? What, is this like Mike Tyson’s “lifetime” ban from boxing? I should expect that you got one chance at reinstatement and that would be it!