Overkill: DUI, Train Wrecks and Murder
Information
courtesy of Lawrence Taylor - DUIblog
Police
and prosecutors have an obligation to seek justice, not vengeance.
Their job is to apply the laws as written, not as personal feelings,
political considerations and/or special interest groups dictate.
And nowhere in the criminal justice system are passions, political
considerations and special interest groups more prevalent than with
drunk driving.
A few
days ago a young man in Indiana became intoxicated and accidentally
drove his car off the road and landed in an embankment. His girlfriend
was thrown from the car and killed. As any experienced officer or
prosecutor will tell you, the obvious charge is DUI and vehicular
manslaughter. He was, however, charged with murder.
There
are some of you whose reaction will be: He deserves it. Morally,
that may or may not be. We are, however, a nation of laws, and he
deserves the punishment set forth by those laws. If the legislature
wishes to call a drunken but accidental homicide a murder rather
than manslaughter, they are free to do so. Until then, police and
prosecutors should follow the law rather than passion and pressure.
How
far can it go? Well, how about the death penalty for DUI? And if
you think that's just sarcasm, read my post about a drunk driving
trial that recently took place right here in the United States.
We
are living in an increasingly vindictive society, a society of passions
rather than laws, as evidenced by developments after the recent
train wreck here in Los Angeles. A deeply disturbed man, trying
to commit suicide, sits in his car on the train tracks and just
before the collision panics and jumps out of the car. The offense
should be obvious: multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter.
(By a great stretch of logic, one could argue 2nd degree murder
due to "conscious/willful disregard for the lives of others",
although that seems refuted by his mental state and wandering through
the carnage afterwards crying out "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry".)
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