Unfair DUI Laws

[ashman165]

How is a mandatory longer-term jail sentence for a non-violent crime merciful?

Please cite for me which violent crime carries with it a lower jail sentence than just a dui.

In New York and many northeastern states, I believe eluding is a misdemeanor. In any case, the penalty for most traffic violations (including drunk driving) needs to be significantly lower than the penalty for a high-speed chase.

Yeah, because those high speed chases of which you speak are the single highest contributor to collision fatalities. Oh wait, drunk driving is.

Not if we don't have the money. At the end of the day, pragmatism is based off of whether we have the ability to do something or not. If the state can't borrow money (IE: California), can't tax people, and can't otherwise raise money, it might not be able to afford to molest the activity- let alone have the trooper's state-issued credit card get approved when he tries to put gasoline in the squad car. If the government doesn't have any money and doesn't have the ability to raise any, it will be forced to let the activity go on unmolested.

Yeah, I can see your point. After all, letting people go around randomly killing the tax payers won't have any negative influence on state revenue. Incidentally, I'm glad that you're happy to say that there is a price limit on protecting the citizenry from those who would do it harm.

Now the question is whether it is more pragmatic to give 20 drunk drivers a license suspension and put one more squad car on the road or whether it makes sense to send ONE drunk driver to jail for a year.

If it were shown that simply suspending licenses had a noticeable impact on the number of drunk drivers, you'd have a point. Alas, it hasn't been and you don't.

Exactly. That's part of the constitution. Problem is that the more draconian punishments that many people are still pushing for- let alone pushing for the federal government to mandate on states via discriminatory highway spending rules- aren't specifically written out in the constitution.

Let them push for them; that's their right. It's equally the majority's right to demur from such, which as you'll notice we largely do.

Hrm, it's not specifically written into the Constitution? Oh, then it must be illegal since the Constitution, by its own terms naturally, proclaims that it is an exhaustive list of the rights, privileges and restrictions upon the citizenry, states and federal government, right? The Constitution is a framework of general tenets with a few specifics thrown in because they're of such fundamental importance to its general framework that they needed to be delineated in such a way as to make patent that x is not at the whim of the government.

Running on sidewalks probably cause the injury of 1/3 of people who walk on sidewalks; why not punish it with jail time?

Well, with such a strong assertion that it's probably the case as supported by all the underlying mathematics and analysis, I'm wholly convinced. At any rate, your response here isn't a response to what I said by any conceivable definition of the idea. I said when they cause the deaths of, not when they injure. In this conversation, we've been talking specifically about collision fatalities proximately caused by drunk drivers. We haven't talked one iota about the number of collisions generally, or injury collisions of any stripe.

We need to figure out exactly what risk an individual drunk driver poses to the public and base punishments off of that. If there are 100,000 drunk drivers in the country and they kill 12,000 people per year, that's one thing. If there are 100 million drunk drivers in the country and they kill 12,000 people per year, there should obviously be a different punishment than if there were only 100,000.

Which isn't the case. The drunk driving population comprises a very low percentage of the total driving population, as I referenced in an earlier post, but account for a third of all fatal collisions. This isn't the expected outcome unless the behavior itself has an inherently high risk.

How much do you think it costs? Remember that jail time automatically costs the state tens of thousands of dollars- and felony jail time is likely to cost the state hundreds of thousands.

I'm quite happy to pay taxes to cover the cost of jailing those drunk drivers who have taken the life of another because of their inability not to drive while drunk. I'm also happy to pay taxes to keep in jail those who are repeatedly convicted of drunk driving (no state makes a first time dui a felony). Hell, I'd triple my tax burden a year if it were necessary to keep from society those types who would run about killing of its members.

Oh, absolutely. The question is, are there more efficient ways of spending it? I assume you'd agree that suspending a driver's license is a more cost-effective way of dealing with drunk drivers than sending them to jail. Suspending a driver's license requires a court hearing and maybe a tow truck or two; sending someone to jail costs thousands and thousands of dollars a month.

I'm sure I wouldn't agree with that. It's not cost effective in the slightest if it does nothing to curb the problem. Who knew that those who are willing to drive drunk are also perfectly willing to drive without a license? It has happened once or twice, I believe.

It costs the same amount of money to keep a convicted murderer in jail as it does to keep a drunk driver in jail.

No, it doesn't.

It costs the same amount of money to hire a police officer in many places as it does to keep a drunk driver in jail for a year; which would you rather spend money on?

Well, if the drunk driver kills only one police officer we've been able to hire at the expense of not jailing that drunk driver, then someone somewhere would lose several hundred thousand dollars in just the insurance payment. Then there's the cost of training of the officer we won't get to use anymore because he's dead. And then we'd have to replace his patrol car. And then have a trial for the guy accused of killing the officer. And then we'd have to factor in the cost of protecting the guy for having killed the officer (as it turns out, some people get upset when someone kills a cop. Even a lot of criminals do.) And then there's the cost of any medical treatment the officer would require before being pronounced dead (you know those pesky doctors, nurses and EMTs are always going that extra mile for a police officer).

Oh yeah, plus a human being would have been killed because the state thought it was too high a price to pay to be bothered with jailing those whose conduct has a substantial likelihood of killing people.

as someone who works in the bond markets, I can assure you that it's now become an either/or proposition for at least a few states and is liable to become an either/or for many more if they don't quickly get their fiscal houses in order.

Oh, well what with this appeal to authority and all, how can I possibly argue otherwise. I am supremely convinced now because you work in the "bond markets"; "bond markets" workers are, as I'm sure you'll all know, always right about predicting the financial affairs of the future.

I'm not saying we should go easy on drunk driving- I'm just saying that if there's a trade-off in CA, it shouldn't be spending $100K to save an innocent person's life from drunk driving if it can spend $10K to save an innocent person's life by making sure there are more paramedics or firefighters.

Thankfully, drunk driving collisions are generally not that eccentric such that rapid attention by the paramedics usually results in the saving of a life. Indeed, if it worked often enough in the other direction, they might have to invent specific terminology to deal with the unthinkable. I bet they'd call it something like "doa".

MADD wants drunk driving to be recognized as a violent felony. It is difficult to be a licensed ANYTHING if you have a felony on your record.

Hrm, so back to my question: when has MADD ever campaigned that one's professional license should be revoked/suspended for being convicted of a dui?

So, they're lobbying for dui to be considered a felony. Big deal. I know of no state in the union which precludes hair stylists from licensure if they have a felony on their record. Or an electrician. Some particular jobs have restrictions based on specifically enumerated felonies, or types of criminal convictions. None of which, incidentally, would be because of having a dui, felony or otherwise.

Even if none of that were true, you still have presented the slightest bit of data to suggest that MADD is or has specifically campaigned for such.

[GoIllini]

why is it always soo unspeakable and off limits to attack the middle class? Thats right they are the compass of patriotism they are "what its all about." Average joes facing time in the big house might send out a real message. too much "could never happen to us or members of our community" bs these days..

It's not necessarily bad form to attack the middle class. I'm simply saying that most countries would be thrilled to get a number of middle class drunks in response to someone's claim that people should be happy that drunks are leaving CA. And if there doesn't become a country for rich non-violent criminals if laws keep getting more draconian, there eventually will be one.

Please cite for me which violent crime carries with it a lower jail sentence than just a dui.

First-time pot possession in IL carries only a fine, I believe. (I only know this because one of my neighbors in school got caught.) Disorderly conduct, indecent exposure, buying kids alcohol, even some of the less dangerous violent crimes (like simple first-time assault) carry lighter sentences than drunk driving. The fact is that aside from some forms of drug possession and distribution, it's hard to find sentences that are significantly harsher than the ones we have for drunk driving.

Yeah, I can see your point. After all, letting people go around randomly killing the tax payers won't have any negative influence on state revenue. Incidentally, I'm glad that you're happy to say that there is a price limit on protecting the citizenry from those who would do it harm.

You're absolutely right. At the rate CA is going, it won't have money to stop murderers let alone merely give drunk drivers suspensions.

California survived the '50s, '60s, and '70s when drunk driving got you a ticket and a ride home rather than a month-long stay in jail. What we do know is that it doesn't have any money to devote to tougher sentences for drunk drivers.

I'm optimistic- I'd like to think CA is as tough as and other states were back in the '70s and can survive just on existing laws or maybe even on laws that just suspend drivers' licenses rather than send people directly to jail. But if I'm wrong and you're right- it looks like the state can't afford not to enforce it's laws and can't afford to enforce them, so it will wind up as a failed state.

Yeah, because those high speed chases of which you speak are the single highest contributor to collision fatalities. Oh wait, drunk driving is.

Yes, but more people are killed per high-speed chase than killed per drunk drive.

Let me try and illustrate the problem with your logic, here. Second hand smoke kills more people than murderers. Does this mean that all of the 50 million smokers in the country should receive the death penalty?

In terms of jail time per person killed, drunk drivers get more jail time than people involved in high-speed chases in New York, and if we treat the DP as a life sentence, I'm pretty sure both groups get more jail time per person killed than murderers do. I'm not saying we should reduce the punishment for these behaviors, but I am saying that current laws where I live are probably adequate punishments- unless the DP or LWOP is somehow an inadequate punishment for murder.

Which isn't the case. The drunk driving population comprises a very low percentage of the total driving population, as I referenced in an earlier post, but account for a third of all fatal collisions. This isn't the expected outcome unless the behavior itself has an inherently high risk.

They actually make up 4-10% of the driving population in many areas on a Friday or Saturday evening. 100 million cars in the country- let's say a significant fraction are on the road at that time and factor in that only a fraction of routine drunk drivers are on the road- and you are talking about at least a 7 figure number.

Hrm, it's not specifically written into the Constitution? Oh, then it must be illegal since the Constitution, by its own terms naturally, proclaims that it is an exhaustive list of the rights, privileges and restrictions upon the citizenry, states and federal government, right?

Searches and seizures without probable cause are unconstitutional. The SCOTUS admits that roadside checkpoints violate peoples' fourth amendment rights but are worth it for the greater good. This utilitarian/ "situational ethics" kind of thinking is pretty dangerous for a court to have in a rights-based democracy. Some would argue that situational ethics is pretty dangerous thinking for anyone to have in ANY walk of life.

Oh, well what with this appeal to authority and all, how can I possibly argue otherwise. I am supremely convinced now because you work in the "bond markets"; "bond markets" workers are, as I'm sure you'll all know, always right about predicting the financial affairs of the future.

Ok, then prove me wrong. If you think the state's doing just fine, take a loan out on your house and put the proceeds into CA's G.O. bonds. Or better yet, at least look up CA's CDS spreads and show everyone how they aren't comparable (tax-adjusted) to a corporation on the verge of default.

So, they're lobbying for dui to be considered a felony. Big deal. I know of no state in the union which precludes hair stylists from licensure if they have a felony on their record. Or an electrician. Some particular jobs have restrictions based on specifically enumerated felonies, or types of criminal convictions. None of which, incidentally, would be because of having a dui, felony or otherwise.

I take it you're not familiar with many doctors, lawyers, or financial professionals. In all of these areas, any kind of felony is a good reason to revoke a professional license.

that's habit vs happenstance. It's not like drunk driving is a form of recreation or a sport or popular hobby. Draconian punishments only effect those breaking the draconian law which prohibits a act with no legitimate purpose. How is disciplining the undisciplined a form of tyranny?

We are talking about creating reasonable public policy here- not what a drunk driver is supposed to complain about when he gets pulled over. The comment "Draconian laws and punishments only effect those who break them" can be used to justify that only people who run on a public sidewalk get the death penalty, only speeders get $50,000,000 tickets, and only people who insult the President go to jail (CC: Sedition Act of 1800).

Punishments for a non-violent crime should be backed up with a detailed analysis of how that person creates negative externalities for society and should be proportionate to that negative externality maybe after factoring in that not everyone gets caught and some people can plea the punishment down. That is what makes a punishment fair.

And finally, not everybody who gets accused of a crime or even punished for a crime is actually guilty. With drunk driving, it's usually pretty clear-cut unless there's a problem with the breathalyzer, but with many other crimes, it's a lot tougher to tell. We're on a forum full of lawyers; I'm sure many posters here are aware of people who were probably genuinely innocent but went to jail anyways. Any of us could wind up in that situation, and it's in our best interests to make sure that the punishments are optimized to not only protect society but also be reasonable given the crime.

depends on what is distracting them and what they and there car was doing at the time it was spotted.

If you talk on a cell-phone or drive sleepily, you are just as dangerous as a drunk driver according to some studies. Does this mean you should go to jail for 30 days for answering your cell-phone in the car when someone calls you?

Oh yeah, plus a human being would have been killed because the state thought it was too high a price to pay to be bothered with jailing those whose conduct has a substantial likelihood of killing people.

That's the price of giving people fair punishments. Fair punishments are a necessary component of not living in a police state.

HOW MANY TIMES are you allowed to be stupid w/out malice though? Instead of shooting into the air how about trying to go deer hunting in the local park and shooting a jogger to death because the deer moved..?

Well, at some point, human beings only live so many years and DUI on a suspended license will always carry at least a jail sentence, so we are talking about maybe 50-100 times in a lifetime if you don't actually hurt anyone. Obviously, if you injure someone, you don't get any more opportunities to be stupid.

That tends to be the way that life in a libertarian country works. There are always risks and some people do stupid things repeatedly. Actually, the vast majority of people do. For those that do illegal stupid things repeatedly, we can take consolation in the fact that they will spend more of their life in jail than others- but again, the punishment needs to be in proportion to the crime.

It was stupid when young men deserted their posts, our government executed them...

Both were stupid (the government was dumber). But the country does tend to become a police state during wartime for the sake of keeping the state free during peacetime. We're not at war right now, but even if you try to argue we are, wartime has nothing to do with drunk drivers.

Is your issue with the felony the fact that felony level discipline will be giving or the fact that the felon will result in one being a felon with the usual stigmas and social disadvantages?

A little bit of both, but mostly the second.

If a drunk driver gets caught 1 in every 200 miles that he makes and 1 in 1,000,000 drunken miles results in someone else's death, something on the order of 200/1,000,000 of a lifetime spent in jail- maybe a month- is a fair punishment. In other words, states that already have a month of jail time for most drunk driving convictions don't need to be any harsher. And some of the convictions for drunk driving might already be WAAY too harsh.

[Halfajap]

All that aside, impaired drivers are the single greatest cause of fatal collisions in my state and, I believe, nationwide as well. They may be the cause of only about 10-15% of property damage only collisions, but fatal and serious injury collisions put them at between 30-36% depending on which numbers you use, and for what state. Off the top of my head I believe the 2008 numbers for CA were 35.7% of fatals, and 12% of non-injury collisions were caused by impaired drivers.

Doesn't that mean that the remaining 64.3% of fatal accidents, and 88% of non-injury collisions were caused by drivers who WEREN'T impaired?

I'm not advocating drinking and driving by any means, it's just that stats like that leave me wondering.

[ashman165]

Doesn't that mean that the remaining 64.3% of fatal accidents, and 88% of non-injury collisions were caused by drivers who WEREN'T impaired?

I'm not advocating drinking and driving by any means, it's just that stats like that leave me wondering.

Why does it leave you wondering? Do you not parcel it out sufficiently well?
These statistics would only be curious if it were the case that the 64.3% (I'll just accept those numbers as true for the point) were caused by, say, the state of being sober. But they aren't. The sobriety of the drivers in all other crashes isn't a factor proximately causing the collisions, or even contributing to it; it's the other things they were doing while being not drunk which were the factors: speeding, talking on the cell phone, putting on makeup, running traffic lights, not watching where they were going, over-driving their headlights, fleeing from scenes of crimes they'd committed, intentionally running down people they hated. In the aggregate, all other causes of fatal collisions outweigh the number caused by drunk driving. But none of them individually has much pull.

So, let's say that tomorrow we somehow manage to stop all drivers from ever running traffic control devices. Ok, great. Now we'll have a few hundred fewer fatalities per year because of that.

Or, if we get people to stop over-driving their headlights, we'll have a minor reduction.

But if we stop drunk driving, we'll have in that sole act stopped more deaths than any few of the other causes combined.

By force of analogy: consider a lottery winning scheme where the winning ticket has been bought from the same store 50% of the time. The remaining winning tickets for all lotteries won have come from not that store. In this binary condition, you could argue that buying a ticket from anywhere gives equal odds for winning - it's 50% if I buy from this store, or 50% if I don't buy from this store. Now, that condition would only hold if the option of not that store was, in fact, one and only one other store. But, as it turns out, there are thousands upon thousands of lottery ticket selling stores which in the aggregate have produced as many winners as this one store.

But none of them has individually done so. Thus, it isn't the case that buying a ticket from our store of 50%, or just buy a ticket from not our store has an equal chance of producing a winning ticket. In order for the probability to work itself out, you'd have to buy a ticket from all other possible ticket sellers than our store. Or, you could spend one dollar buy one ticket and greatly increase your chance of winning.

(This test has a couple of necessary assumptions: a winning ticket is always bought in each given lottery period; all ticket sales of store x have to be equal to all ticket sales of not store x.)

In short, there is nothing at all to wonder about unless it's the case that not being drunk in and of itself causes 64.3% of all fatal collisions. Alas, it does not. Of course, this is unsurprising, which is why no one has ever said, "oh, a fatal? I bet it's because the guy was sober."

[Baz744]

Nobody wants to have drunk drivers on the road. We have to do everything in our societal power to prevent that. However, when the government meets out excessively punitive penalties, like a ten year suspension of driving privileges, all they are doing is encouraging people to drive without a license. It is not practical to live in the modern world without driving. People will sacrifice to obey their punishment for six months, maybe a year. Maybe two. Ten years is simply piling on with no real tangible beneift other than to make someone further criminal. I think other steps should be considered that might actually have a chance at being effective.

Is there any state that gives a 10 year suspension of driving privileges for a first offense DUI? I'd agree that's draconian. Everyone makes a stupid mistake now and then. I'd even say it's too much for a 2nd DUI offense, personally.

But three times? Here you're talking about someone who is unwilling to or incapable of following society's basic rules about driving. 10 year suspension of driving privileges should at least be a possibility in that case.

[GoIllini]

Is there any state that gives a 10 year suspension of driving privileges for a first offense DUI? I'd agree that's draconian. Everyone makes a stupid mistake now and then. I'd even say it's too much for a 2nd DUI offense, personally.

But three times? Here you're talking about someone who is unwilling to or incapable of following society's basic rules about driving. 10 year suspension of driving privileges should at least be a possibility in that case.

But again, the punishment meted out shouldn't be MORE disproportionate to the crime. I'll get to the ten year issue at the end, but the real problem here is that you're also looking at a 12-month jail sentence for drunk driving.

Let's extend this logic a bit- does anyone here think that someone should receive the death penalty for their seventh drunk driving conviction- even if they've never hurt or injured anyone? Are they so ridiculously stupid that the only solution is for society to punish them by killing them?

Is 10 years without a driver's license fair? Maybe. I'd look for a 3 year suspension and ten years with an interlock device for every car in that person's household if he wants his license renewed. Maybe make sure everybody in the family has a vested interest in making sure the guy doesn't drive anymore.

By force of analogy: consider a lottery winning scheme where the winning ticket has been bought from the same store 50% of the time. The remaining winning tickets for all lotteries won have come from not that store. In this binary condition, you could argue that buying a ticket from anywhere gives equal odds for winning - it's 50% if I buy from this store, or 50% if I don't buy from this store. Now, that condition would only hold if the option of not that store was, in fact, one and only one other store. But, as it turns out, there are thousands upon thousands of lottery ticket selling stores which in the aggregate have produced as many winners as this one store.

I'm not sure where you're going with this analogy. If one store sells 50% of all lottery tickets, then, assuming there's no correlation between winning and that store, then 50% of the winning tickets will come from that store. There's no reason to buy lotto tickets from that store rather than somewhere else. (In fact, there will probably be less of a line elsewhere since it will be less busy.)

Drunk drivers do cause a disproportionate amount of deaths on the road. But many of those deaths are their own. If skydiving causes 5000 deaths/year, it might be a good idea to ban skydiving, but it may not make sense to give skydivers 2 year jail sentences if illegal skydiving causes a very small number of deaths to people on the ground. (I am not saying this is the case for drunk driving- I am just saying it would be interesting to see the numbers about the number of innocent sober people not in the car killed by drunk driving.) They do cause enough negative externalities in terms of injuries and deaths to others to merit some jail time, but the question is how much.

Let's get back to your lottery ticket analogy. If one store sells 34% of the winning lottery tickets and only issues 4% of total lottery tickets, there's a strong correlation between buying a lottery ticket from that store and buying a winning lottery ticket. But if another store sells 5% of winning lottery tickets and only issues 0.05% of total lottery tickets, your odds of winning the lottery are even greater than the first store.

Given that an individual incident of eluding police has a greater risk of killing or injuring another innocent person than an individual incident of drunk driving, why aren't people punished more for eluding police in a vehicle.

[ashman165]

Let's extend this logic a bit- does anyone here think that someone should receive the death penalty for their seventh drunk driving conviction- even if they've never hurt or injured anyone? Are they so ridiculously stupid that the only solution is for society to punish them by killing them?

No one is advocating for such a position; we're just refusing to anyone advocate that repeat drunk drivers get to impose the death penalty on someone else, even if not directly intended.

I'm not sure where you're going with this analogy. If one store sells 50% of all lottery tickets, then, assuming there's no correlation between winning and that store, then 50% of the winning tickets will come from that store. There's no reason to buy lotto tickets from that store rather than somewhere else. (In fact, there will probably be less of a line elsewhere since it will be less busy.)

I wasn't sufficiently clear in my example. Indeed, going back over it, what I should have said is that all stores have an equal number of tickets - so the analogy in question would only be not curious if if not our store was just one entity. Since it's all stores which aren't our store, there's obviously something going on worth considering at our store - because it has the same number of total tickets as any other store, but still winds up producing the winning ticket half the time.

From that, naturally, it then follows that your odds are substantially increased for winning the lottery simply by shopping in that store. Sure, you can buy tickets from another store, but to match the odds of just our store, you'd have to buy a ticket from all competing stores. This is because none of them is a significant producer of a winning ticket, though when taken in the aggregate, their probability is equal.

Drunk drivers do cause a disproportionate amount of deaths on the road. But many of those deaths are their own.

Most of them are not the drunk in question.

If skydiving causes 5000 deaths/year, it might be a good idea to ban skydiving, but it may not make sense to give skydivers 2 year jail sentences if illegal skydiving causes a very small number of deaths to people on the ground.

When they start falling to the Earth and killing passersby, I'll consider this as being a valid argument. As it turns out, it has yet to happen such as I can find. Can you cite even one case in which a skydiver has plummeted to the ground and caused the death of an innocent person who was just going on his merry way? You know, walking somewhere, driving a car, sunbathing, dancing, roller skating, anything?

(I am not saying this is the case for drunk driving- I am just saying it would be interesting to see the numbers about the number of innocent sober people not in the car killed by drunk driving.)

Then you're in luck as those statistics are kept. You see, you count up the dead people in a given collision, take their blood for analysis and it's rather easily discerned which ones had booze in them and which didn't. Then you factor out the collisions in which it was happenstance that a driver was drunk and you're left the total of innocent people who were killed directly as a result of the drunk driver's actions. I say happenstance because it's entirely possible that the drunk behind the wheel of his car wasn't the proximate cause of the collision in question.

But these types of causality analysis are done routinely and high precision.

They do cause enough negative externalities in terms of injuries and deaths to others to merit some jail time, but the question is how much.

How about the same for negligent homicide / involuntary manslaughter?

Let's get back to your lottery ticket analogy. If one store sells 34% of the winning lottery tickets and only issues 4% of total lottery tickets, there's a strong correlation between buying a lottery ticket from that store and buying a winning lottery ticket. But if another store sells 5% of winning lottery tickets and only issues 0.05% of total lottery tickets, your odds of winning the lottery are even greater than the first store.

I'm only responding here to say that I screwed up the original post. But I corrected it, mostly, in this one.

Given that an individual incident of eluding police has a greater risk of killing or injuring another innocent person than an individual incident of drunk driving, why aren't people punished more for eluding police in a vehicle.

This is what you claim, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to think it's true.

In my state, your argument would hold no water because we do punish those eluding (well, attempting as those who are eluding don't get caught) much more severely than we do a first time drunk driving charge. First time attempting to elude charge is a felony; first time drunk driving is a gross misdemeanor as charged (and then plead down to negligent driving in the first degree provided the person agrees to attend counseling). We offer no "not eluding police" counseling for a reduced charge.

With the negligent driving in the first degree deferral we use, we are demonstrating we understand that people sometimes make a bad decision. And this gives them their once in a lifetime chance to get caught and not a criminal conviction. Provided they learn their lesson and sin no more, it's done.

[Halfajap]

Why does it leave you wondering? Do you not parcel it out sufficiently well?
These statistics would only be curious if it were the case that the 64.3% (I'll just accept those numbers as true for the point) were caused by, say, the state of being sober. But they aren't. The sobriety of the drivers in all other crashes isn't a factor proximately causing the collisions, or even contributing to it; it's the other things they were doing while being not drunk which were the factors: speeding, talking on the cell phone, putting on makeup, running traffic lights, not watching where they were going, over-driving their headlights, fleeing from scenes of crimes they'd committed, intentionally running down people they hated. In the aggregate, all other causes of fatal collisions outweigh the number caused by drunk driving. But none of them individually has much pull."

So, overall, it's not the sobriety (or "the how") of the person that causes the accidents so much as it is "the what" they do behind the wheel. Isn't that what you are saying? All of those reasons factor into the drunk person's driving as well. Given those stats, it just seems to me that more accidents are caused by sober people speeding, talking on the cell phone, putting on makeup, running traffic lights, not watching where they were going, over-driving their headlights, fleeing from scenes of crimes they'd committed, and intentionally running down people they hated, then there are of drunk people - in which those same situations would apply. You can't argue that it's their ability to drive and not their state of sobriety just because they happen to be sober. Those same standards should be applicable to drunk drivers as well.

I just think it's funny to include stats like that which work against the point you are trying to make. Because according to those stats, I should be more concerned with the sober driver than the drunk one. That's all I was getting at.

[Baz744]

No one is advocating for such a position; we're just refusing to anyone advocate that repeat drunk drivers get to impose the death penalty on someone else, even if not directly intended.

I don't think he was saying anyone was advocating that position. I think he was trying to illustrate the idea of "reasonable proportionality." Deterrence is one part of sentencing theory. But if it was the only part, then we could rationalize executing 7th time, 3rd time, or even 1st time drunken drivers. After all, that would certainly be the most effective approach from a deterrence perspective.

But there's something fundamentally unjust about that. That is draconian. It's just too severe of a punishment. As Beccaria might say, the punishment "doesn't fit the crime." It isn't proportional to the offense committed. If you agree that we shouldn't execute a 7 time drunk driver who's never hurt anyone, then you agree in principle with reasonable proportionality.

So punishment must be calculated to deter, and in some cases it must be calculated to reap appropriate vengeance. Sometimes punishment should be calculated to fulfill other objectives, like protecting society. But because of the basic principle of reasonable proportionality, it also can't be so excessive as to be unjust.

There's no mathematical formula for figuring that out though. GoIllini seems to feel that a 10 year suspension of driving privileges is excessive for a third time drunken driver. I'm not convinced (though I can see how it might be when combined with other punishments). To my mind, the "protecting society" rationale kicks in with a third time drunken driver, because in that case, we're clearly dealing with someone who either can't or won't control himself. If we let this character lawfully drive, he's gonna drink and drive, and there's nothing we can do to stop him.

My question for GoIllini at this point is: is there ever a point at which you'd agree that a 10 year or longer suspension of driving privileges is appropriate? If so, where? 4th offense? 5th offense? 10th?

[cyjeff]

At what point is someone considered such a bad driver... by their OWN actions... that they are deemed no longer allowed to drive.

Let's look at it from another way.

Let's say that I really like driving with my feet. I am not good at it, but like having my hands free. I drive all over the road. I tell myself that I am actually a better driver with my feet because my hands are free to wave at passersby.

Unfortunately, most of the time they don't wave back. They are more worried about that crazy feet driving guy that is all over the road because feet really don't operate the controls very well.

Every time I drive with my feet, I make a choice. The police see me driving with my feet and, in my jurisdiction, driving with my feet is illegal (unless, of course, I am offered special dispensation due to a handicap).

They issue me a ticket. Then another and another. Each one is for foot driving.

Each time, the judge tells me not to do it. I tell the judge that I should be allowed to drive with my feet because it is a free country. That feet driving is really not as bad as everyone thinks.

The unspeakable finally happens. While feet driving, I run over a pedestrian.

If you were the family of the pedestrian, wouldn't you have thought it prudent for the judge to remove my driving privileges BEFORE a death... especially since I have shown a willingness to drive with me feet despite being told I am not a very good driver that way.

You make a choice to drive impaired... whether it be through alcohol, feet driving or a blindfold... and you have to abide by that action. The fact that you wait until after you are caught to access the penalty is very short sighted.

Especially when I am SURE the judge told you what would happen if caught a third time.