Thursday, October 1, 2009
Drunk Drivers
I have been against drinking and driver from day one, recently I watched an episode on Dr. Phil, Where it talked about the mother who drove down the opposite side of the rode and caused a collision killing 8 people including herself, her two children and her nieces, and 3 other victims. The show was talking about what we do with the criminals who cause the accidents; they were because of the fact that our prisons are so over populated when a drunk driver takes someone’s life while driving under the influence their sentence is for man slather not murder, which is a difference of 15 years compared to life in prison. Because we don’t have enough room in the jails, and we don’t want to pay to have them in their they are letting them have lesser jail time and doing things such as breath test to start your cars, and more check points. I personally think that if you committed a crime, such as driving under the influence you need to deal with the consequences and be punished. If you killed someone murder is murder you shouldn’t be able to get out early because there isn’t enough room in the jails or a lesser sentence because you didn’t know what you were doing because you were drunk.
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I think that people who honestly weren't in full control of their faculties are not as liable for murder as someone who is fully conscious of the act. However, your argument has weight to it; irresponsible drunk driving is, as you said, inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteI think I should point out, however, that the courts are not necessarily shortening sentences simply to fit more people into jails; that seems a little presumptuous to me. Murder is the action of deliberately killing a human being on certain pretexts. Manslaughter is not murder, nor is it considered to be as serious. For example, the manslaughter you referred to earlier was not murder, because it was not necessarily deliberate, but was instead an accident. Therefore, the charges were less severe. So, though I agree with the principles of your argument, I cannot agree with your claim (in my interpretation) that all killing deserves life in prison. I think that there are certain degrees of killing which require different sentences accordingly.
I agree with you that people that drive drunk and kill someone should face murder charges. My major is criminal justice and I want to become a parole officer. And I disagree with the other comment before. Yes they are right about how the law states why it is manslaughter and not murder, but I think the law should be change. Yes it is an accident that they hit and killed someone, but it is not an accident that they drunk and then decided to drive. Yes there thought process is not as good when drunk, but they know drunk or not that they should not drink and drive. They decided to drink and then drive so take responsibility for it. Maybe if they did get charged with murder and faced more severe penalties then maybe less people would drink and drive. Drinking and driving and killing someone is not an accident. Driving at a safe speed and winter conditions and losing control of you car on a patch of ice and hitting and killing someone is an accident. This story reminds me of an NFL player who drunk and drove hit and killed someone only got 24 days in prison. Now I know what you will argue back that he got off easy because of money and being famous, but another NFL player shot himself in the leg and is currently serving a 2 year prison sentence.
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