bmattock
Veteran
O, Canada...
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RJBender
RFF Sponsoring Member
Is that a mug shot or a high school yearbook photo? I guess they didn't handcuff him when they took him in. R.J.
N
Nikon Bob
Guest
That is why mom always wanted you to have clean underwear on. Made my day reading this.
Nikon Bob
Nikon Bob
John Camp
Well-known
If I'd had a couple of drinks and was facing a Canadian breathalizer, I'd eat my shorts, too, if I thought it'd do any good, and I wouldn't sweat the clean shorts thing. I knew a fishing guide in Canada who was financially ruined, and wound up divorced, over a single DUI ticket.
JC
JC
pesphoto
Veteran
holy crap, thats funny!
bmattock
Veteran
John Camp said:
One might say that if a person knows that DUI is against the law, and knows that the penalties are quite high for DUI where they live, and they choose to drive drunk anyway, they get what they deserve.
Sorry, I have some sympathy for your friend, but I have friends with family members killed by repeat DUI offenders. Depending on the state, killing someone in the USA while driving drunk is either treated as a 'manslaughter' with a couple years in prison, tops - or as a more serious 'murder' charge, with serious consequences.
I'm not a goody-two-shoes. In my younger days, I did many things I'm not proud of, and driving drunk was one of them. I was fortunate I did not hurt anyone. I will never drive impaired again, and I am always happy to hear that a DUI driver got a real prison term and not just a fine. If I had been caught driving drunk, I'd have had it coming too. Wouldn't have liked it, but would have deserved it.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
RJBender
RFF Sponsoring Member
bmattock said:
Check out the penalties in other countries:
http://www.duipictures.com/duilaws.htm
I see that in Russia it is no longer a capital offense.
R.J.
John Camp
Well-known
bmattock said:
I think it is necessary to look at actual damage, as well. The problem is, that in some countries -- Canada is one of them, or Ontario, anyway -- they've taken a lot of the "judgment" away from the judges. I'm not entirely certain of what I'm about to say (the details of it; but I'm close) but I think this was what happened.
The guy was a fishing guide. He had, he admits, several beers at a beer joint. He was stopped on the highway, given a breathalizer test, and cited for DUI. Under the law (as I understand it) his license was suspended immediately, based on the citation. He then waited several months before he got a court date, after which hs license was suspended (I think) for one additional year and he also paid a large fine. This was a guy who lived out in the countryside and had no other way to get around, and who lived by his truck: he needed it to tow his boat. The penalty seriously damaged his livelihood and his family, which he had no way to support. He was only marginally drunk when stopped, and at that point, had hurt no one. He lived in a town of a few hundred people that only makes living from summer tourists at the lake. The nearest town of any size is 35 miles away, and that's only 10,000 or so, and few jobs there.
So in order to prevent the uncertain future possibility that this guy might drive drunk and hurt somebody, the court (or he, depending on your point of view) coolly and deliberately hurt his wife and children.
I personally don't drink at all. I don't have a problem with it, I just don't, because I don't like the taste or the effect of alcohol. And if a drunk driver hurts somebody on the highway, I think he or she should get jail time. But I think there ought to be some real judgment involved on a case-by-case basis, rather than a single one-size-fits-all penalty. For example, in this case, the guy was not out-of-control drunk; he was just over the legal limt. If I was a judge and thought he needed a lesson, I would have put his ass in jail for three months in the winter, only allowed him to to drive for business purposes, and warned him that all the other bad stuff would happen if he were caught again. But I would have tried to make it possible for him to support his family. (It's also true that he wasn't totally deprived of his living; instead of having guiding as his own business, his wife would drop him off at local resorts and he'd scrounge jobs in the resort boats. That's how I met him.)
By the way, I don't know if even Canadians know this, but the U.S. shares criminal conviction data with Canada. If you're an American with a single DUI, and if you're one of the people they pick to check on their computers, and they find out, they won't let you in the country. I think there might be some time limit on this, but I'm not sure.
JC
bmattock
Veteran
John Camp said:
I don't mean to reduce your argument to a single statement, but I think we've been over most of that ground - I think that the person who chose to drink and then drive was your friend, and therefore he was responsible for the consequences of his actions, not the courts. I understand that we disagree on this.
I did want to address one of your last statements, however, because I've had to wrestle with this as well in my mind.
The problem with laws regarding DUI is that they are 'one-size-fits-all'. And that's simply not true, as you noted. I'm a big guy. I can drink more and still be legally sober than a smaller guy. But I don't drink that much - I might be falling down drunk and still 'legal' while a person who does drink a bit might have a higher tolerance and still be in control of their faculties although their B.A.C. might be higher than mine.
The law, as has been said before, is an ass. It does not know 'how drunk I am'. It only knows my Blood-Alcohol-Content (B.A.C.).
And I think it can be argued that there is no real way to objectively determine to what degree a person is impaired. There are roadside tests that can be done - but they depend largely on subjective decisions made by police - and for that reason, they are always backed up with B.A.C. tests of various sorts.
So states set limits which do not have anything to do with how drunk a person is, or how in or out of control they might be. But by being conservative, they do much to ensure that our highways are as safe as they can be; if everyone observes the law, that is.
As to degree of DUI - there are many states in the US that have such laws. DUI involving an accident, for example; or DUI resulting in a fatality. Each has a higher penalty than the previous or basic DUI. Some states have civil asset forfeiture laws - get convicted for DUI - the state takes your vehicle and sells it. I don't agree with those, by the way.
I think ultimately it comes down to personal accountability. We are each responsible for the consequences of our own decisions and actions. If your friend had not lifted a bottle to his lips, none of what happened would have been set in motion. I'm sorry if that seems harsh.
Best Regards,
Bill Mattocks
John Camp
Well-known
Bill,
You know, I wouldn't mind the harshness so much if there had been some thought behind it, rather than just the administration of a penalty set by a legislature trying to get re-elected. I could be as harsh as anyone with some crimes, but I've always thought laws should have leeway, to allow judges to apply the leeway (or not) according to the cirumstances. When that Arab guy DIDN'T get the death penalty in the 9/11 case, I was pleased, not because I,m opposed to the death penalty, but because it seemed to me that somebody had really thought about it, and agonized over it, and had come to a supportable decision. If this fishing guide had gone before a judge and the judge had considered all the circumstances...I wouldn't have had much of a problem. It was just that he got what I think of as being knee-jerked.
For your consideration I also will mention the California case where a guy had twice been arrested in one of the more notorious ghettoes for gun-related crimes in his teens, for which he was convicted and (I believe) served some small amount of time. Then, after thirty years of not having another criminal action brought against him, and in which he became a pretty respectable member of society, he got drunk, was in an accident and somebody got either hurt or killed (I can't remember which.) That's a felony in California, as it is most other places, and sending him to jail would be appropriate. But in California, there's a three-strikes-and-you're-out law, and he was headed for mandatory life without parole. I don't know what happened, because I never saw the follow-up. Again, knee-jerk in the cause of getting politicians re-elected.
JC
You know, I wouldn't mind the harshness so much if there had been some thought behind it, rather than just the administration of a penalty set by a legislature trying to get re-elected. I could be as harsh as anyone with some crimes, but I've always thought laws should have leeway, to allow judges to apply the leeway (or not) according to the cirumstances. When that Arab guy DIDN'T get the death penalty in the 9/11 case, I was pleased, not because I,m opposed to the death penalty, but because it seemed to me that somebody had really thought about it, and agonized over it, and had come to a supportable decision. If this fishing guide had gone before a judge and the judge had considered all the circumstances...I wouldn't have had much of a problem. It was just that he got what I think of as being knee-jerked.
For your consideration I also will mention the California case where a guy had twice been arrested in one of the more notorious ghettoes for gun-related crimes in his teens, for which he was convicted and (I believe) served some small amount of time. Then, after thirty years of not having another criminal action brought against him, and in which he became a pretty respectable member of society, he got drunk, was in an accident and somebody got either hurt or killed (I can't remember which.) That's a felony in California, as it is most other places, and sending him to jail would be appropriate. But in California, there's a three-strikes-and-you're-out law, and he was headed for mandatory life without parole. I don't know what happened, because I never saw the follow-up. Again, knee-jerk in the cause of getting politicians re-elected.
JC
Andrew Sowerby
Well-known
John Camp said:
According to the Criminal Code of Canada, a first offence of operating a vehicle while impaired results in a fine of not less than $600 and/or a prison sentence of not more than six months -- ss. 253(b) and 255(1). Seems like there's plenty of leeway for a judge to choose the appropriate punishment. Licenses are issued by provincial governments so the suspension of your friend's license for a year would be done in accordance with provincial legislation.
I'm not entirely sure what circumstances the judge should have considered. Having one's license suspended is always going to be inconvenient, perhaps even to the point of disrupting your livelihood.