Drunk Driver Made to Wear Sign Saying He Killed a Man

I don't get this thread at all. Someone got behind the wheel of a deadly machine, intoxicated, killed another human being and some of you are aghast that he had to wear a sign around his LIVE neck for awhile and be "humiliated"? Meanwhile, the family of the person DEAD has to go year after year after year missing the person they love because that person is DEAD FOREVER??

What am I missing??????????

He is lucky to be alive and out of prison. I think it is an effective and creative way of sentencing. Unusual but not cruel in my opinion.

specklebang said:

IMHO shaming, stocks, signs, caning, indentured servitude etc. are far better solutions than incarceration. Dangerous people need to be locked up. Prison is used as a one size fits all solution in America because profits are always the most important thing. We really need to try alternatives.

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Is putting your personal desire for a physically and psychologically disconnected state of mind and body while driving a vehicle dangerous or not?

ric27 said:

Good, but right now, the DOJ's goal is to see that justice is served. By that I mean that rights are respected, laws followed and that our system of jurisprudence is allowed to work as designed.

90 day jail time was applied...end of story.

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90 days in prison and holding a 8 hours a day for four days for getting drunk and willfully getting in a car and running someone over is not justice. Its a slap on a wrist,especially considering the fact this is not his first time getting caught driving drunk.

Chiefgator said:

LINK


How is this NOT considered "cruel and unusual"???

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He already did prison time for this; but it may have been part of the plea. But on some level, it's not too far away from the ol' stockades.

jamesrage said:

90 days in prison and holding a 8 hours a day for four days for getting drunk and willfully getting in a car and running someone over is not justice. Its a slap on a wrist,especially considering the fact this is not his first time getting caught driving drunk.

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Well he got drunk and willfullyt got in the car, but I doubt he willfully ran someone over.

Not trying to be edgy or sarcastic here. Do you think that guy is holding the sign and:

A) Frowning because of the shame and public embarrassment he feels, or

B) Smiling because he accidentally killed someone and he is getting away with a slap on the wrist for it.

Ikari said:

Well he got drunk and willfullyt got in the car, but I doubt he willfully ran someone over.

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If a person does not know that getting into a car drunk can do such a thing, then they should not have a license to start with.

Arbo said:

If a person does not know that getting into a car drunk can do such a thing, then they should not have a license to start with.

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I would say the same for a wide array of things, not just drinking and driving. However, drinking and driving does not make intent to do personal harm.

MaggieD said:

Personally, I'd like to see anyone who caused a major accident while DWI ought to have their car painted so it glows in the dark. At least we could all see 'em comin'.

I agree with you. The guy should've been in jail for five years. At least he'd'a come out sober.

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Well, I'm sure this guy doesn't have a license to drive right now, but prolly will some day again. I always thought they should have plates for DUI convictions for a period of time...front and rear, something to identify them on the road. You want your license back, here's your plate.

Blue_State said:

Not trying to be edgy or sarcastic here. Do you think that guy is holding the sign and:

A) Frowning because of the shame and public embarrassment he feels, or

B) Smiling because he accidentally killed someone and he is getting away with a slap on the wrist for it.

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I'm sure he can't wait for it to be over with so 'he can get on with his life' as all criminals who are merely slapped on the wrist do.

The bigger question is "will he stop drinking now that he's been given a get out of jail free card?" - I doubt it: if anything - his tendency to drown his sorrows in a bottle will surface more so and he'll drink to cope.

Hmm - if we take away licenses *to drive* - why can't we just take away a license *to drink?* Seriously: why don't we require all forms of ID to clarify whether someone can buy or be served alcohol? If they still manage to get liquor (as is likely to be done very easily) - and then are involved in a drinking-related crime thereafter: the person supplying the booze will also be penalized . . . something like that?

Ikari said:

Well he got drunk and willfullyt got in the car, but I doubt he willfully ran someone over.

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Yeah, he was drunk and operating a deadly weapon while impaired...no big deal. [sarcasm on]

Rapunzel52 said:

Yeah, he was drunk and operating a deadly weapon while impaired...no big deal. [sarcasm on]

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Should someone texting and driving have the same level of punishments? Sleepy driving? Talking on the cell phone? What about the other various forms of distracted driving? Should they all carry similar punishment, or are we just singling out drinking and driving because we think it's so much worse than other forms of distracted driving?

Facts about Distracted Driving:
■Distracted driving is the number one killer of American teens. Alcohol-related accidents among teens have dropped. But teenage traffic fatalities have remained unchanged, because distracted driving is on the rise. (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance Study and NHTSA Study)
■While over 90% of teen drivers say they don't drink and drive, nine out of 10 say they've seen passengers distracting the driver, or drivers using cell phones. (National Teen Driver Survey)
■Brain power used while driving decreases by 40% when a driver listens to conversation or music. (Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University Study)
■More than 80% of drivers admit to blatantly hazardous behavior: changing clothes, steering with a foot, painting nails and shaving. (Nationwide Mutual Insurance Survey)
■Drivers on mobile phones are more impaired than drivers at .08 BAC. (University of Utah Study)
■An estimated million people each day chat on their mobile or send text messages while driving. (The Herald)
■41 percent of drivers admitted they had “fallen asleep or nodded off” while driving at least once, 11 percent said they had done so within the past year, and four percent said they had fallen asleep behind the wheel in the previous month. (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety Survey)
■Drowsy driving causes an estimated 1,550 deaths a year and 40,000 injuries. (CDC Report)

http://negligentdriving.com/distracted.cfm

Ikari said:

Should someone texting and driving have the same level of punishments? Sleepy driving? Talking on the cell phone? What about the other various forms of distracted driving? Should they all carry similar punishment, or are we just singling out drinking and driving because we think it's so much worse than other forms of distracted driving?

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I'm not sure what kind of point you're making here. If somebody, while in the operation of a vehicle, behaves carelessly, and if that careless behavior leads to the death of another, they should be charged with negligent homicide at minimum (intent dependent). A vehicle has been determined in the court of law to qualify as a deadly weapon. If one utilizes it to that end, whether intentionally or through willfull carelessness, they should receive consistent, heavy punishment.

Somebody who is also violating the law in combination with that carlessness should face further charges for the laws violated. If texting or utilizing a cellphone is illegal in that area then charges should be applied. Driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal pretty much everywhere, with the only variation being at what point the legal limit for BAC is exceeded. So there should be charges for that.

When the negligence of one leads to the death of another it should be taken very, very seriously. 90 days in jail and 4 days holding a sign proclaiming their crime is hardly a serious application of justice when the crime is the death of another.

tessaesque said:

I'm not sure what kind of point you're making here.

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The point is quite clear. When discussing drunk driving, people are often times willing to state punishment above and beyond that which would be handed out for the same dynamics such as drowsey sleeping. If the guy nodded off at the wheel and killed a dude instead, would people still be upset about the 90 days behind bars or would they be more willing to lend forgiveness in that situation? I would agree that all similar dynamics such as distracted driving in general, should come with similar punishments. This guy may be at the tail end of the punishment distribution, but if it were something other than drunk driving, would there be quite this much outrage?

Ikari said:

The point is quite clear. When discussing drunk driving, people are often times willing to state punishment above and beyond that which would be handed out for the same dynamics such as drowsey sleeping. If the guy nodded off at the wheel and killed a dude instead, would people still be upset about the 90 days behind bars or would they be more willing to lend forgiveness in that situation? I would agree that all similar dynamics such as distracted driving in general, should come with similar punishments. This guy may be at the tail end of the punishment distribution, but if it were something other than drunk driving, would there be quite this much outrage?

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For me personally? Yes, there would be this level of outrage. Carelessness is carelessness, regarding of how it is practiced. I see no difference between a drunk driver hitting and killing a family member and a texting driver hitting and killing a family member. Either way, it is still negligent homicide, created by the personal decisions of the careless driver.

Anecdote: Recently, a car stalled on the highway locally because it ran out of gas. The driver did several things wrong:
1. She didn't put her hazard lights on or leave the car lights on, even though it was well after sundown and she had a dark colored vehicle.
2. She had 7 people in a small car, 4 of which were children under the age of 5, and only one of which (a 6 month old) in proper restraints.

Another driver entering the highway did not see the car in the dark until it was too late. Though he tried to swerve and break, he was unable to avoid hitting the car, which sent it into a poll. Police determined that the entering car had been going the posted speed limit or less.

The driver of the stalled car behaved carelessly, resulting in the deaths of two children and injuries to other parties. Even though her car wasn't in motion, she had failed to adhere to several safety laws. I view this incident in much the same light as somebody who drinks 4 shots in an hour and gets behind the wheel, then ends up going the wrong way on the Dallas North Tollway (something that actually happens with alarming frequency), hitting and/or killing other drivers. As I said, carelessness is still carelessness.

Ikari said:

He already did prison time for this; but it may have been part of the plea. But on some level, it's not too far away from the ol' stockades.

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Perhaps so...but is that necessarily a bad thing? Honestly I don't really see what the problem is with "stockades" or similar forms of public shaming. Are they really cruel and unusual compared to the barbaric forms of punishment that our justice system regularly doles out...or is it just frowned upon merely because it seems old-fashioned?

I'm all for stockades, public shaming, and humiliation playing a much bigger role in our criminal justice system. Hell, I'd even support bringing back flogging if it was used in lieu of prison time and didn't cause any permanent harm to the convict. Not because I think our criminal justice system is too lenient, but because it's too harsh. Nothing can possibly compete with our hellish prison systems when it comes to cruelty. The conditions inside prisons are truly horrifying.

Ikari said:

■Brain power used while driving decreases by 40% when a driver listens to conversation or music. (Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University Study)

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Time to require gags on all people in a car and outlaw radios, eh?

:roll:

It appears that the OP is the only one arguing that anything is cruel and unusual, some here appear to speak as though the guilty party is arguing this. Another unfortunate thing is that the defendent was apparently not wearing a restraint at the time of the impact. It's very sad all around.

specklebang said:

IMHO shaming, stocks, signs, caning, indentured servitude etc. are far better solutions than incarceration. Dangerous people need to be locked up. Prison is used as a one size fits all solution in America because profits are always the most important thing. We really need to try alternatives.

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How does driving under the influence and killing a person, especially on your more than first offense, not make you a dangerous person?

I don't understand how locking up a person generates a profit.

I agree completely that the sentence was just way too light. The guy should have gotten more time in jail for killing someone.

However, while I agree with this form of humiliation punishment, I don't think it is appropriate, nor that it will be very effective in this case. This isn't an errant teenager or some soccer mom caught shoplifting where humiliation punishment, particularly wearing a sign for a set number of hours on set days, is going to be really effective. This guy wasn't in complete control of his faculties when he committed the crime so it is unlikely that making him wear the sign is going to be effective at all at curbing the behavior, drinking, that led to the crime. In fact, adding that stress of just having to be out there will very likely push him toward drinking more and possibly driving, even illegally again while drunk.

The point to such punishments is to force the person to face social pressure and that social pressure will curb the behavior (the teen would likely be seen by someone who knew them and that would cause teasing, that teasing would stay in their mind; soccer mom gets seen by at least one other mom or person in her social group will see her and there will be gossip). This doesn't work so well with grown men, particularly if they are in just a random spot. Most people who know the guy likely already know he killed someone while driving drunk and people who don't know him may now loathe him but they will also likely forget his face around 5 or 10 miles down the road.

It may be effective if the guy had to wear something like that before he went out to a bar or club or maybe if his picture had to be put up in all bars/clubs in town.

This also potentially puts this guy in danger from some nut-bag vigilante who decides the guy doesn't deserve to live or deserves to be hit by a car himself. And I know some may think this is just, but it isn't right to kill him for doing something stupid that got someone killed but wasn't malicious in itself.

The license plates or signs on the car, I can agree with (although it is probably unlikely that this guy can legally drive a car right now), particularly if someone killed someone. I'm even for long license suspensions/revoking, even to the point (particularly after multiple drunk driving accidents) of just completely banning the person from owning a license.

Arbo said:

Time to require gags on all people in a car and outlaw radios, eh?

:roll:

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I didn't say that, thanks for jumping to conclusions. I'm just showing that there are various forms of distracted driving which lead to at least (if not greater) threat as drinking and driving.

Ikari said:

I didn't say that, thanks for jumping to conclusions.

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What other conclusion can one come to? Unless each car has a driving 'chamber' where nobody can talk to the driver, where the driver can not listen to the radio, that cancels out cell phone signal, that they have to blow into a tube before the car starts, that doesn't have a mirror so you can put your makeup on or shave, .... then everyone is unsafe. Right?

Arbo said:

What other conclusion can one come to? Unless each car has a driving 'chamber' where nobody can talk to the driver, where the driver can not listen to the radio, that cancels out cell phone signal, that they have to blow into a tube before the car starts, that doesn't have a mirror so you can put your makeup on or shave, .... then everyone is unsafe. Right?

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No. Only people who choose to perform those activities are unsafe. Putting crack in front of somebody doesn't make them a crack addict, it just exposes them to the ability to do crack. When you drive, you make choices. If you make unsafe choices you will likely cause unsafe conditions. When that happens, punishments should be laid out dependent on the consequences you've created.

Nobody's made the argument for pre-emptive restraints. Ikari (somebody I almost always disagree with but with whom 've found common ground in this debate) was merely pointing out that some might think a negligent driver who kills while texting is somehow less offensive than a negligent driver who kills after drinking. I have no idea where the hell your conclusion came from, but it isn't represented in anything Ikari said.

tessaesque said:

No.

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I came to that conclusion because this thread is about a drunk driver who killed someone, getting a slap on the wrist. A drunk driver that apparently had at least one other DUI prior to killing someone. That someone that would probably be alive today if the legal system didn't hand out slaps on the wrist. And in the middle of this, we get an interjection of texting while driving and other nonsense that has nothing to do with a murderer getting away with it because the system is far to lenient.