Drunk driving
Below is a copy of an article I read recently.
"May 1, 2007 10:12 AM
Suspect Accused Of Running Over & Killing Mother, Faces Judge Today
Posted By: Bill Price
A man who is accused of running over and killing a woman trying to stop him
from driving drunk will learn Tuesday if there's a chance he could get out
of jail.
Paul Daugherty, 38, of Hamersville will get a bond hearing Tuesday morning in Clermont County.
A judge will then decide whether Daugherty will get a bond, on charges of aggravated vehicular homicide and operating a vehicle under the influence.
The incident occurred outside of the Hoppy's Place bar on Ohio route 132 in Amelia early Monday morning.
Melissa Robbers was reportedly trying to stop Daugherty from leaving the bar and driving his car drunk, when she was killed.
Clermont Sheriff deputies accused Daugherty of knocking Robbers down, when he backed up his car.
Then he put his car into drive and drove over the mother of four.
The tragic incident was Daugherty's sixth drunk driving charge.
He's been arrested for drunk driving three other times in Clermont County, with two other arrests out of state in Florida and Pennsylvania.
Currently, Daugherty is being held in the Clermont County Jail without bond.
If Daugherty does get a bond, the amount is expected to be high."
Does anything about that scream "This is wrong" to anyone else? He was on his sixth drunk driving charge?!? What the fuck? Five times prior to this he was caught! That doesn't begin to touch the number of times that he did it and got away with it. I'm a firm believer that people make mistakes. But I also believe we make them to learn from them. The first time maybe it was a bad call on the person's part. There should be no second time.
What freakin' judge decided that he deserved another chance after the 5th time? Now, I guess part of the problem is that his record must not carry over from state to state. Even at that, he had 3 other offenses in clermont county alone.
Now, I have had a friend go through this recently. He made a bad call one night and ended up rolling his truck and getting a DUI. I'm not writing this to lecture him, but it is a good example.
For his first offense he got the works. His license was suspended, there was a mess of court dates and the associated costs and they even went so far as to mandate brief counseling. There were other consequences as well. I would say this is on par for a first timer. There is no way for the court to know if this was an isolated incident from an otherwise good person or if it just happened to be the first time the person got caught after a long string of instances of drunk driving. It does a lot to disrupt life, and I feel it is adequate punishment (as long as nobody is hurt, obviously).
For the average person who possibly made that bad decision this should be enough of a deterrent of the chance of another incident. When in doubt, you just don't chance it. Now in Ohio we give people yellow license plates in the attempt to humiliate them. Do they honestly think it is going to stop a repeat offender? They obviously don't care, so why bother? The second offense should carry a much heavier punishment. By the time you get to your second offense you have already used up your get out of jail free card and selfishly risked the lives of other people. We need something in the way of a mandatory jail sentence. For the sake of the argument I'll say 6 months. That is a pretty healthy chunk of time. The point of it isn't actually to send people to jail. The point is that it should act as a deterrent. The average person will see that threat looming over them and really reconsider if it is worth it. Now we just have repeated slaps on the wrist and it doesn't work. Start crucifying people and see how many will want to roll the dice on it, especially when a 6 month jail term could potentially destroy your life. I'm sure it seems a bit extreme to consider ruining a person's life for drunk driving, but consider this: they are willfully risking the lives of everyone else on the road. Yes, every time they head out the have the potential to take a mother, father or child from their family. How can you expect that dad to explain to his children why mommy won't be coming home? It starts to sound fair, doesn't it? The man above ran over a mother of four who was trying to stop him from driving drunk... and is on his 6th charge. Why was this allowed to happen?
Now I can already see all sorts of people standing in front of the judge that second time claiming all sorts of crazy circumstances. I'm calling bullshit on all of them right now. You control who you associate with and the surroundings in which you act. If you find yourself thinking that the situation is questionable, remove yourself from it. Just don't do anything shady and it won't be an issue.
Also please note, couseling would be a mandatory part of the sentence in each case. Either AA (the sissy route) or me punching you in the face until you no longer want to drink (the manly route). That or some other organization that does that sort of thing.
Hell, I'm feeling generous. Let's make it so that the first offense falls off after a set time limit. This way the mistake you make when you're twenty doesn't follow you to your grave. 20 years sounds reasonable.
Now, for those people still determined to drive impaired after the first two offenses we should probably come up with something pretty bad. After all, they have proven that they don't care about ruining their own life or the lives of any potential victims. Why should we feel bad about slowing down their spiral of self destruction? Third offense: 2 years in jail, then probation and a few years of no license. There is no excuse for a third drunk driving offense, thus I do not feel remiss in the least for putting them away. If they are in jail then they can't hurt anyone.
4th offense? Well, I hope you like riding your bike to your job bagging groceries at Krogers for the rest of your life, because when I'm done with you you won't be driving anywhere even after you get out of a long jail term. The fact that nobody would hire you and your future would be destroyed should have kept you walking the straight and narrow, but it didn't. So no more driving for you, ever.
5th and 6th offense? Send them to a work farm. There they can spend the rest of their lives breaking rocks and making license plates for the cars they will never again operate. If they can't supervise themselves then we can do it for them. Use them for medical testing or something, so long as they aren't allowed to breed and raise children.
And what for the guy in the article above? He ran over a mother of four driving drunk... and obviously at this point didn't have any intentions towards reform. Does he deserve mercy?