10 years for DUI manslaughter

lfd0311 said:
I agree, I also don't like how people who don't know anything about it look at it in an absolute sense. This woman is 50. She obviously didn't just start behaving like this the day before she killed this family. She's obviously had a problem with alcohol for a long time and should have gotten some help at some point. Maybe she has and fell off the wagon. I don't know her story. I do know she killed a family, and ten years isn't enough of a punishment for that. You have to take every case on an individual basis.
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Just like anything else it's tough for people to understand something with which they've had no experience. I agree with everything you wrote here and 10 years seems just amazingly short.

I did AA a bunch of years ago, wasn't a big fan of it all, but we had a lady in there who had something like 6 or 7 DUI's. The last one, she finally did it... she finally fucking killed somebody in a DWI accident. She was under house arrest... house arrest for killing somebody while awaiting trial. Granted, she was an exceptionally nice lady and very positive, but how in the fuck did a judge let her out of jail? Her track record clearly showed that she couldn't be trusted. It just hit me as so messed up that she wasn't sitting in jail all day long... her repeated stupidity for many years cost someone else their life, but she was allowed to live in the comfort of her own home. Just didn't seem right.
 
Tough call. It's not like she went out intending to kill anyone so you can't put this in same category as murder. 10 years is probably fair, maybe a little on the short side for 5 victims but not unreasonably so since it was only one negligent act, imo.
 
panamaican said:
Tough call. It's not like she went out intending to kill anyone so you can't put this in same category as murder. 10 years is probably fair, maybe a little on the short side for 5 victims but not unreasonably so since it was only one negligent act, imo.
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This blows my mind about the legal system. I recognize that intent matters, but I can't see how it matters so much so that killing 4 people results in <10 years of punishment. I can see both sides of the coin, but her actions directly snuffed out 4 lives. How can that lead to such a small penalty and be justice?
 
usmctanker242 said:
This blows my mind about the legal system. I recognize that intent matters, but I can't see how it matters so much so that killing 4 people results in <10 years of punishment. I can see both sides of the coin, but her actions directly snuffed out 4 lives. How can that lead to such a small penalty and be justice?
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Because there's a difference between justice and revenge. Justice punishes her for her actions and tries to be neutral about it. Revenge punishes her for how the victims felt.

Here, she didn't intend to kill anyone. She got behind the wheel drunk. It's a crime but we don't punish drunk driving with 10 years of jail time. But as result of being drunk she caused an accident. We don't punish drunk drivers who cause car accidents with 10 years of jail time. The car accident she caused resulted in people dying. But every car crash that results in the loss of life doesn't automatically yield jail time.

So, where's the middle ground? The only criminal act was drunk driving but it's not a 10 year crime. The consequences were horrific but, absent the drunk driving, we wouldn't send anyone to jail for a fatal car crash. 10 years tries to walk that middle ground. I can see how it might seem low and maybe 15 would be better but 20 or 25 seems too much.
 
usmctanker242 said:
Just like anything else it's tough for people to understand something with which they've had no experience. I agree with everything you wrote here and 10 years seems just amazingly short.

I did AA a bunch of years ago, wasn't a big fan of it all, but we had a lady in there who had something like 6 or 7 DUI's. The last one, she finally did it... she finally fucking killed somebody in a DWI accident. She was under house arrest... house arrest for killing somebody while awaiting trial. Granted, she was an exceptionally nice lady and very positive, but how in the fuck did a judge let her out of jail? Her track record clearly showed that she couldn't be trusted. It just hit me as so messed up that she wasn't sitting in jail all day long... her repeated stupidity for many years cost someone else their life, but she was allowed to live in the comfort of her own home. Just didn't seem right.
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That's the problem. I'm sure this woman isn't a "bad" person of some kind. She's just a drunk. That's something that can be fixed. I'm all for second chances. Not 8th chances. This lady was going 80 mph drunk as hell, at night and ran a stop sign.

This is from the same article you posted. She is responsible for all of this, and ten years isn't enough for that:

the first police officer on scene said no other emergency call has compared to the crash.

The officer, who has three sons of his own, told court he remembers Miguire gripping his pinky finger. He went to his patrol car to cry after the incident, he said.
 
usmctanker242 said:
This blows my mind about the legal system. I recognize that intent matters, but I can't see how it matters so much so that killing 4 people results in <10 years of punishment. I can see both sides of the coin, but her actions directly snuffed out 4 lives. How can that lead to such a small penalty and be justice?
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Because there still has to be a level of punshment reserved for those who commit truely henious acts intentionally.
 
panamaican said:
Because there's a difference between justice and revenge. Justice punishes her for her actions and tries to be neutral about it. Revenge punishes her for how the victims felt.

Here, she didn't intend to kill anyone. She got behind the wheel drunk. It's a crime but we don't punish drunk driving with 10 years of jail time. But as result of being drunk she caused an accident. We don't punish drunk drivers who cause car accidents with 10 years of jail time. The car accident she caused resulted in people dying. But every car crash that results in the loss of life doesn't automatically yield jail time.

So, where's the middle ground? The only criminal act was drunk driving but it's not a 10 year crime. The consequences were horrific but, absent the drunk driving, we wouldn't send anyone to jail for a fatal car crash. 10 years tries to walk that middle ground. I can see how it might seem low and maybe 15 would be better but 20 or 25 seems too much.
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You make a lot of sense here, especially in the revenge vs justice aspect. It's hard for me to separate those two things sometimes. Thanks for the reply and knowledge.
 
I have two friends (different time and place) who have been hit by a drunk driver. One died and one was disabled (physically and mentally). The driver that killed my friend did some time and while he tried to contact the family he was threatened by my friend's father. The other friend and his mom went about things totally differently. Friend was looking at years of rehabilitation and a lifetime of constant challenge (he can barley walk and talk now and it has been 15 years) but his mom did not threaten the offender, she asked the judge/court for the offender to help with the rehabilitation of her son and the judge agreed. The big difference is that one friend is dead and one is not... however I have always felt that the guy who had to go to my friend's rehabilitation and form a relationship with his mom was a brilliant form of justice. For years he had to see his actions face to face, he had to sit next to my friend's mom while they watched my friend try and walk.
 
usmctanker242 said:
There is... it's called Capital Punishment.
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It's tied in to what Pan said. We can't just execute/throw everyone in Prison for life that does someting we find emotionally reprehensible. It's the fine line between revenge and retribution. We have to maintain that to maintain who we are as a people. It's why, in theory, our ancestors came to this country to begin with.
 
panamaican said:
Because there's a difference between justice and revenge. Justice punishes her for her actions and tries to be neutral about it. Revenge punishes her for how the victims felt.

Here, she didn't intend to kill anyone. She got behind the wheel drunk. It's a crime but we don't punish drunk driving with 10 years of jail time. But as result of being drunk she caused an accident. We don't punish drunk drivers who cause car accidents with 10 years of jail time. The car accident she caused resulted in people dying. But every car crash that results in the loss of life doesn't automatically yield jail time.

So, where's the middle ground? The only criminal act was drunk driving but it's not a 10 year crime. The consequences were horrific but, absent the drunk driving, we wouldn't send anyone to jail for a fatal car crash. 10 years tries to walk that middle ground. I can see how it might seem low and maybe 15 would be better but 20 or 25 seems too much.
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So if someone got drunk and had a fully auto weapon and started shooting in the air to celebrate New Years and killed 5 family members and get 10 years and possible out in 3, that's justice? It's the same thing.
 
oldshadow said:
So if someone got drunk and had a fully auto weapon and started shooting in the air to celebrate New Years and killed 5 family members and get 10 years and possible out in 3, that's justice? It's the same thing.
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It's not the same thing because we have a different punishment scale for firearm related offenses. The punishment range for drunk driving and the punishment range for firearms are very far apart and they should be.
 
panamaican said:
It's not the same thing because we have a different punishment scale for firearm related offenses. The punishment range for drunk driving and the punishment range for firearms are very far apart and they should be.
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Why just because the choice of deadly weapon is different?

No a weapon is a weapon and the results are the same and the punishment should be the same.
 
10 years for 5 lives? No wonder why people are still not worried about driving drunk. What a damn shame.
 
It's a very, very, very sad case. She likely did jot mean to kill anybody, but that doesn't mean she isn't responsible for teh deaths. I would say 10-15 is pretty good chunk of her life.
 
deadshot138 said:
10 years for killing 5 people? That's a fucking joke. And she'll likely do 7 or even less. If I was a family member of the dead, I'd be outraged.
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She could sit in prison for eternity and it won't bring the family back. This thread proves that the vast majority of people value only retribution as a goal of the justice system.
 
BKMMAFAN said:
She could sit in prison for eternity and it won't bring the family back. This thread proves that the vast majority of people value only retribution as a goal of the justice system.
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The justice system is about (or should be) justice for the family and the victim.

As long as it meet the constitution.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
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Punishment.
 
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