Antabuse, and, FTR, it doesn’t work.
They don’t. However, the state has the right to put her in prison for 10 years. The judge basically makes a deal that says he agrees not to throw her in prison for 10 years if she agrees to waive some of her rights, such as drinking in her home. She is free to tell the judge where to stick it if she wants, and do the jail time. Most people opt to agree to the restrictions, although sometimes people decide to just do the jail time and get it over with.
I was going to ask you about this, but you supplied the answer for me. I knew someone that fit this description, except she would be in her mid '30s by now and was living in Grand Prairie that last I heard.
I had to bite my tongue more than once around her when she was whining about the probation.
Met a guy in Michigan with 4 duis. He was rich and got very good lawyers. Had to serve community service which was not bad because he got doctor to say he had a bad back. He went to the service and sat in his car and read.
At least it kept him from drinking … [/devil’s advocate]
I think the same thing, except that after your second DUI/DWI you lose your license permanently. I’d be in favor of this being levied after the first offense actually but there are sometimes extenuating circumstances. But no fucking driving around after multiple accounts! At that point you have proven yourself forever incompetent.
I can only hope that the family of the person she’s inevitably going to wind up killing hunts her down and relieves us of her Mafia execution-style.
Hot button issue with me.
Here’s where mandatory sentencing needs to be written into the law. DWI/DUI should have mandatory jail time and you lose your license on the first offense. And I mean lose it - you don’t ever get your driving privileges restored.
It’s too damn serious an offence. We have over 40k deaths a year on the roads and highways and a large percentage of them are alcohol/drug related. It’s not going to stop until the courts start putting drunk drivers in jail instead of giving probation.
Losing your license forever on a first offense would be a little harsh…if that were the case, the President couldn’t even drive his truck around the ranch in Crawford here 30 years later (and he couldn’t ask Cheney to drive him, either; he’s got two DWI convictions himself).
Our suspension and relicensing law are pretty stiff; most people are very unpleasantly surprised. When you’re first stopped, you lose your license for either three months or six months on an ALR suspension, even if your case is ultimately dropped or you are found not guilty by a jury. It will be suspended again upon your conviction for three months to one year, and if you had an open container you’ll flat time 5 days in county jail even if you get probation. An occupational license to get to work, take your kids to school, and get groceries during certain times of the day will cost around $400 in court costs, and you’ll have to pay your insurance company to get an SR-22 policy as well as your lawyer to file it. You may also be required to get an ignition interlock to start your car, which you’ll have to pay for. If you drive without a license or outside of the limits of your occupational license, you’ll go to jail and probably get your probation revoked. When you do get your license back you’ll have to pay a surcharge of $3000 to the Texas Department of Public Safety to keep it, $4500 if you blew over a certain limit. This is just all for a first offense; next time it’ll be worse, and the time after that you’ll be looking at going to the pen like our lady friend in the OP. My quickie calculation/estimate shows her little escapades costing her around $20,000+ altogether with around $10,000-ish just to get her license back.
We don’t go as far as suspending licenses forever, but we do make some pretty substantial barriers to getting your license back that generally get people’s attention pretty well. At any rate, a driver’s license isn’t a magic card that starts your car, of course; people can and do drive without them all the time, and the cost of prosecuting and jailing them is not inconsequential. From a practical standpoint, the system wants you to have a driver’s license, and wants you to obey the law when you use it, so the process of getting your license back is a bit of a stick and carrot game with the ultimate result being that people are hopefully a bit more careful with it next time. Would you rather have defendants pay through the nose to get their license back, or you paying to indefinitely prosecute and jail them for driving without licenses?
Sounds like this is one case where us New Yorkers are willing to handle crime in a way you Texas liberals aren’t up for. Earlier this year, a New York judge sentenced a man to seventeen years in prison for a DWI offense - now that’s sending a message.
Was that 30 days in Lou Sterig? I can’t imagine risking being caught again after that–it’s a scary, ugly place.
And I should care about that… why? If you are incompetent enough to drive drunk, you don’t deserve to drive, and that goes as much for a president as it does for an office worker. At that point you are basically making yourself and your car a murder weapon. And I don’t think murder weapons should be allowed to roll around on the streets willy-nilly. I can grudgingly accept that people should be given a second chance after their first time (although they should still lose their license for a considerable span of time, say a year), but the second? No dice. Giving a drunk/druggie a car is like giving a mental patient a submachine gun.
And if getting around without a car is so hard, boo hoo. There’s thousands of us who manage to do it every day, and you (generalized you) should have thought about that before driving drunk. Just MHO.
Whichg would have no impact whatsoever on the social problem of drunk driving, since repeat offenders just keep on driving anyway.
Not when we take away their cars. And it’s rather hard to drive when you are in prison.
I’m not mentioning Bush and Cheny because of their lofty positions, but because they’re well known examples. Permanently denying them a driver’s license for offenses they committed 30 and 40 years ago wouldn’t really accomplish any societal purpose.
More importantly, a driver’s license is not required to drive a car. The car doesn’t know you have no license. You can lose your license, walk out of the courthouse, and jump in your car, and it will start right up. All denying a driver’s license does is criminalize driving without one. It doesn’t prevent it. A very large proportion of felony DWI’s commit their offense when they have their license suspended as things stand now; very, very few of them think “wow, I’m really drunk, I’d better drive home…oh, wait, no license.” On the other hand, somebody who cleans up can’t get theirs back now, so basically you’ve got a system that penalizes those who straighten up and conform their conduct to the law by telling them they can never get their license back, and does nothing terribly different to those who are driving without bothering to get their licenses back anyway.
Another consideration: the DA’s that I mentioned permanent license revocation to literally groaned. Just the monetary restrictions we’ve recently placed on getting a suspension cleared have resulted in a staggering increase in DWLS cases, so many that they’ve had to create a seperate docket for them. Permanent revocation would mean the number of these cases would fly through the roof, and you and I are paying to prosecute and jail these guys. To top that, an increase in the number of DWLI cases also results in an increase in uninsured motorists. It would be a huge burden on taxpayers and defendants alike with no real benefits.
A guy was just sentenced to 38 years in prison here in NE Ohio after killing 2 teens in a car accident where he was driving with a .26 BAL.
At least 10 judges or DA’s should be joining him. :mad:
And their feet. Let’s take them too.
AND we’d have the added bonus because the busing services would improve.
At least, not as well as Grandma.
For the record, it does make you violently ill if you drink alcohol. I’ve heard of cases where the patient supposedly still drank after taking Antabuse, but as far as I know, compliance was never substantiated. I’m willing to be educated, though.
This from someone who drank a bit of wine after taking Antabuse. I only did it after that one episode of throat-clogging, up-chucking, head-in-a-vise, I-wish-I was-dead misery that lasted all night. So like any good alky, I just quit taking the damn stuff.
We may be drunks, but we ain’t stupid.