Hell, I had a trial earlier this year on a habitual DWI offender. The max possible sentence was LIFE. And the jury let him walk.
Problem with DWI cases is, jurors look at the defendant and think, “there but for the grace of God go I.” The empathy card plays very well. And it’s not easy to send someone away for 25-to-life for driving after a couple beers.
I’d be curious as to what the members of the jury would think if a few members of their family were wiped out the next time that guy gets behind the wheel after a couple.
Yes, it does make you violently ill, but for the truly addicted, that’s a small price to pay for your fix.
As a probation officer for the last 10 years, I’ve forced hundreds of people to take Antabuse. Some people don’t drink on it, and never drink again. Is it because of the Antabuse, or would they have been able to do it without? No way to tell. I have caught dozens and dozens of people drinking on it. There is no way to just stop taking it, because you have to report 3 times a week to an office where they watch you take it. So they go to the office, take the stuff, go back out to their car and take a big swig of alcohol, which causes them to throw up the entire contents of their stomach, including most of the antabuse. (And compliance, I can assure you, was substantiated because I’ve personally watched more than a couple people do this.) Another way is to build up a tolerance to the antabuse by drinking a tiny bit of alcohol at first, wait for the sickness to pass, drink a little more, wait, drink a little more, repeat ad nauseum (HA!). At least 50 people have told me that they did this. Most of the people who beat antabuse learn how to do so at an AA meeting.
Thanks for the education, Don’t Call Me Shirley, I hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, addicts are an ingenious bunch.
This is not my experience (and I have a lot of experience with alcoholics, criminals, AA, and aversion therapy).
Generally they hear how to “beat” antabuse (if you call puking your guts out and feeling sick for hours beating it) from other alcoholics who are court-ordered to go to AA rather than go to AA because they want to stop drinking.
I’ll trade you, Cloth.
Minor possession offenses get lighter sentences like probation and we can toss the DWIs in jail.
It’s all about priorities, people.
hijack, sorry.
As someone who volunteered at the local Alano club and whose father is an active member of AA, I would like to state that courts have GOT TO STOP DOING THIS.
Court ordered AA does nothing. Half the time the people will come, get their paper signed, and take off. If the meeting is one of the ones that makes you sit through the whole meeting to get it signed, they just leave and find a new one. These people almost always go back to whatever their bad behavior was before because they’re having recovery forced upon them, which never works. It just distresses those who ARE newly-clean and sometimes leads to them getting into more trouble by hanging out with those people - who aren’t there for their own good and invariably wind up drinking all of the coffee.
Also, stop sending the teens to Alateen - the kids there aren’t alcoholics and drug addicts, but the children of them, and they don’t need more of them around, thanks.
/hijack.
~Tasha
Well, actually it would:
While they’re in jail, they’re not out on the road trying to kill you and me and our families.
Yeah, court-ordered AA is a pretty stupid notion. There are AA meetings around here that are attended by serious people who really want to stop drinking, and then there are “soft” meetings that are attended by court-ordered people who get their paper signed, bitch about the system for a while, and then finish the meeting up at a local bar.
Occasionally someone will be court-ordered to go, maybe hit one of the hard-core meetings by chance, get something out of it, and get serious about recovery. Maybe one in a hundred. Of course, those people probably could have done just as well without the court order.
That’s easy for you to say, living in a city with a subway, light rail, buses that run after 9:00 PM, and (guessing from the numbers) a dense layout that lets you travel by foot once in a while.
Actually I spent the first twenty-three years of my life in a very small town with NO buses of any type, so I know how hard it is to get around when you can’t drive there. It’s a real punishment. Which is what we should do to people who have so little respect for their fellow man that they turn themselves into murder weapons.
Just how far have you thought this through? What do you suppose they’ll do for a living if their jobs are across town… walk for five hours in each direction every day, all the while cursing the moment that demon rum first touched their lips?
Or will they, perhaps, start stealing from their neighbors and selling meth? Seems a bit more likely. Making it impossible for someone to get around legitimately is just going to ensure that he stays a criminal.
I’m fed up too…here in MA, lawyers make TONS of money litigating drunk-driving cases. the judges are too lenient-which is why you read about people who cause horrendous accidents-and find out that this is their 12th DUI conviction! Unfortunately, its the innocent victims who are killed and maimed for life-often the drunk survices unscathed. What i don’t understand; why can’t they confiscate the car? Drunk driving is a serious crime-and we don’t need lawyers getting the same people off , year after year!
Am I being callous when I say that I don’t really care what happens to them? Because I don’t. Hey, I’m willing to let them keep their license (after a small suspension) after the first time. But IMO, after that first time the behavior becomes pathological and it becomes only a matter of time before they murder someone. The best thing to do is nip that behavior in the bud. Would you let someone who was repeatedly cited with reckless use of firearms own a gun? This is the same thing, only with Americans’ sick, dangerous love affair with the car thrown into the mix.
Like, seriously, don’t drink and drive. Is that so fucking hard to do?
Yes. Not that losing their license really stops them from driving. It just makes them more dangerous to whomever will be their victim.
So losing a license due to 2 or more DUIs is the new gateway drug? The reckless disregard for others is already present.
I understand your point, but I’m a bit skeptical that every person who drives under the influence more than once is 100% destined to murder somebody.
Now “But IMO, after that first time the behavior becomes pathological and it might be only a matter of time before they potentially murder someone” makes a little more sense.
Just to try to inject some facts to help people consider when to start penalizing folks heavily for DUIs:
If an individual has one DUI, their chance of being “problem drinker” or an alcoholic is not much higher than that of a person without a DUI. 2/3 to 3/4 of all DUI offenders in most states are single DUI offenders.
If a person has more than one DUI, their chance of being a “problem drinker” or alcoholic goes up tremendously. These folks are the ones known as “persistent drinking drivers”.
repeat offenders and persistent drinking drivers
IMHO: First DUI need significant civil/financial penalties. Second and after needs to treat the infraction as a criminal matter.
No, you’re just missing the point of what I wrote: this isn’t just something that happens to them. If they have to support themselves through crime because there’s no way for them to commute to work, that’s your problem too.
Guns aren’t necessary for daily living. Or are we talking about some wild frontier where hunting is the only way to survive? In that case, yes, I would, after putting them through some safety courses, because the alternative is that they’ll steal my food (or starve).
This is pretty simple… without a car, in most of the US, it’s hard if not impossible to hold down a legitimate job. If you don’t have a job, how are you going to eat and keep a roof over your head? Poverty is a big cause of crime. Do you expect folks with a DUI to just starve on the street instead of starting exciting new careers as criminals?
I believe you’re thinking of Antabuse (disulfiram), which causes nausea and vomiting if alcohol is ingested.