March 01, 2006
5th time's a charm
The Washington legislature is starting to get tough on crime: "Bill would make 5th DUI a felony"
Driving under the influence is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail — no matter how many times you've been convicted of the crime before. On Tuesday, the state House unanimously passed a bill that would send people convicted of five DUIs within seven years to prison.
House Bill 3317 now moves to the Senate for consideration.
"Prosecutors tell us that repeat drunk drivers are getting off too easy," said Rep. John Ahern, R-Spokane, who sponsored the bill
Even five chances seems too lenient, giving the
disastrous consequences of impaired driving. I'd be interested in hearing the policy arguments for setting the threshhold at 5, and not, say, 3.
UPDATE: an informed reader posts this comment:
Under the original HB 3317, sponsored by Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane) three DUI's would constitute a felony. The Democrats would not pass that bill, ostensibly because of concerns about its cost. The bill was negotiated with the Democrats, and the only way they would move it is if the three were changed to five. So that's why it is five. The feeling on the Republican side was that five was better than no bill at all, which would have been the result otherwise.
When Democrats use "cost" as an excuse one can only wonder about their real motives. And did the Democrats stop to think about the cost of allowing the chronic DUI offenders to stay out of prison?
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 01, 2006
09:29 AM | Email This
1. I'd like to hear the policy arguments for NOT setting the threshold at TWO.
Everybody knows the consequences of drunken driving, and the extreme risk it puts other's lives in. There's no excuse, when there's plenty of friends and family members one could call, and there's always taxi service...
2. They need to look at how Florida deals with DUI's. In the late 80's my brother lost his license for 10 years after his 3rd DUI. 5! WTF!
3. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the idea of tolerance. We need to be nice to people, after all, and give them plenty of chances to get things right.
We must realize that these people are victims of Demon Rum, or BigBeer Corporation, or a broken home, or something. Thus, we need to show compassion on them because they need time, or intervention, or something, to correct their behavior.
(So do I sound like a bleeding-heart legislator yet?)
4. Boy, nobody better accuse the dems of being soft on crime :rolleyes
5. Hey Stevedog...It says it was passed unanimously...so much for Repub leadership
6. The prisons are too crowded because the system is all screwed up. Police and prosecutors waste their time on drug offenders and violent criminals get off scott free. DUIs are a big problem, but the entitlement government has created so many other criminal problems with little solution, that DUIs end up ranking low.
Maybe the solution is to make the penalty much stiffer by lowering the threshold for DUIs, but if you are going to do that, then you have to speed up the due process for murderers on death row so we can make room for more offenders.
Maybe more privatization in the prison system so we can build more prisons. Let's put these criminals to work on chain gangs. Prison should be harder and more miserable than slavery. If I was running a private prison, I'd be turning a profit on the backs of criminals.
7. the 5TH ONE???? No wonder drunk drivers are out there wreaking hoavoc with our road safety.
8. My renter at work is a Public Defender and gets these types of cases.
You would be surprised at the leniency of the courts and what individuals get away with without jail time.
I hope that someone had done their research on this one and had numbers on how many people would get jailed at 7, 5 and 3. Is it possible to get these numbers. Apparently, it was held up until extra capacity was budgeted for.
I mean, how many people would this affect?
How about the DUIs that get caught with suspended licenses and no insurance? I think that should count into the 7, 5 and 3. Three strikes for one DUI, in other words.
9. Studies by The Department of Health and Social Services have shown that driving while talking on a cell phone, or when experiencing the symptoms of PMS, are equivalent of driving whit a BAC of 0.11, well over the so-called legal limit of 0.08. If your going to prosecute impaired drivers, prosecute them all. If you lower the limit to 3, then raise the legal BAC to 0.10. If you want the streets safer, make it tougher to get a drivers license. I seen people drive sober that have scared the hell out of me.
10. Lord save us all from a "tough on crime" legislature! These are the folks who will not get touch on auto theft. I believe the average for a car theif to actually be prosecuted is after he's caught five or seven times? Only then is he actually charged, and MAYBE goes to jail. And our legislature sure is getting tough on child predators, aren't they? They are trying to throw in the little waiver that if the predator is known to the child, i.e. family member or friend, the penalty should be way less. How about the little fact that around 80% of these cases are prepetrated by predators related to or known by the victim? That kind of takes care of that "toughening up". Our state just plain does not want to punish anyone for any crime. It's that simple. Oh, except maybe not paying property taxes or something like that. Or maybe smoking in public. Or if your dog kills a cat. Or if you leave your child in the car for 30 seconds, within line of sight, while you drop a video in the hole in the wall. But the real stuff, well, we need to consider the feelings of the criminals, don't we? Let's forget all about the victims. They're powerless, and anyway they're already traumatized, so aren't realy up to causing a stink!
11. Just where does "Public Safety" rank in terms of Priorities of Government with this legislature? Doesn't even seem like its in their top 10.
12. How about let's require the Legislature to observe at Harborview Medical Center on a Friday and Saturday night plus a three day holiday weekend?
It's amazing how stuff like this "being tough on crime" alwasy crops up more during an election year.
13. Actually, I believe that the reasoning for setting the threshold so high was that it would cost too much to put them in jail sooner. Ya gotta love our legislature.
While I don't often agree with Ken Schram - he did an excellent commentary on exactly this subject a few days ago. You can link to it and watch on the KOMO web site.
14. I don't do Scrambo.
15. First tighten the loopholes that allow slimy lawyers to get DUIs off on the little technical crap.
All DUIs should be felonies based on the danger. Waving a gun and discharging it on the highway would get me a felony rap, DUI is the same thing different weapon.
1st DUI lose the car and your license for 1 year, any car your caught driving in that year is gone.
2nd DUI lose the car and your license forever, any car you are ever caught driving is gone.
3rd 5-10 years in prison.
4th life in prison.
If you're DUI, wreak and injury someone go straight to 5-10 years.
If you're DUI, wreak and kill someone go straight to life.
If it's too expensive to get these &*%%$(* off the road, what's the economic and personal cost of leaving them to point a lethal weapon down the road. Next family that loses someone to a 3x DUI should sue the legislators who vote for this bill for negligence in performance of their duties and not keeping the public safe from known hazards.
16. The only logical explanation for "5 strikes and yer out" is that most drunken drivers are Democrats....and the Dems don't want their key constituency to be banned from voting any sooner.
17. JCM is right. Too many innocent people have been hurt or killed by drunk drivers (most of whom have had multiple DUIs--and remember those are just the times these people are CAUGHT driving drunk). The first time around should be a mandatory 6 months in jail in addition to losing your license for a year. Of course if a judge can get just a brisk figger wagging for drunken driving, it is pretty clear the legislators are not serious about fixing the problem. Teddy Kennedy would be proud of our group in Olympia on this issue.
18. Maybe the republicans should get behind a campaign of rewriting all of the sentencing minimums and guidelines. We can start with mandatory life or death for murder, and then continue with life or death for rape. Once we have these violent criminals off the streets after their first offence, we can put the other crimes in proper perspective.
DUI really isn't the problem, as others have mentioned. It is wreckless driving and vehicular manslaughter. We could quickly fix the driving problems if we held those found at fault in vehicular manslaughter guilty of murder. If it truly was an accident, then no one is to blame and no one gets punished. But if you get in the vehicle in a state of mind that isn't conducive to driving, or if you aren't exercising caution while driving, you should be held accountable when you end up killing someone for your negligence.
A life for a life is really the only way to make things fair and just.
19. "Our state just plain does not want to punish anyone for any crime. It's that simple. Oh, except maybe not paying property taxes or something like that. Or maybe smoking in public. Or if your dog kills a cat. Or if you leave your child in the car for 30 seconds,"
Don't forget the newest crime..."leaving your vehicle running to warm it up while you run inside to get your things"...I'll be amazed if the criminal that ran over and killed that Renton man last week - get's in as much trouble as the poor victim would have - if he had lived! I can see it now..."It was the victims fault - the criminal was *provoked* to steal the car because it was unattended.." (rolling my eyes here..)
Yes! The Democrats are definitely the big drunks of society! They even flaunt their habit by naming their drinking clubs.."Drinking Liberally" comes to mind.... I'm surprised they didn't change it to "18" strikes and your out!
The liberal Democrats will always favor crimes that bring them income... They will pursue their version of "Dead-beat dads", parking tickets, seat-belt offenders, speeding tickets, CAO permit offenders, etc.... They know that true crime does not pay..(them).. They wont get money from ticketing and locking up rapists, murderers, drug dealers, car thieves, armed robbers, gang bangers, etc....so why spend the money to keep them in jail?
20. Under the original HB 3317, sponsored by Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane) three DUI's would constitute a felony. The Democrats would not pass that bill, ostensibly because of concerns about its cost. The bill was negotiated with the Democrats, and the only way they would move it is if the three were changed to five. So that's why it is five. The feeling on the Republican side was that five was better than no bill at all, which would have been the result otherwise. You should inform Sound Politics readers of that.
21. I was a local elected city councilman about 8 or so years back. We had the option in front of us to lower the threshhold for DUI from .1 to .08 BAC. I asked if there were any stats to back the reduction. No one had any, not even staff. The reason was that "every one else is doing it" and we want to be consistant. I agree that 5 DUIs are too many but I would say that we should re-think the maximum allowable BAC. (I voted no by the way.)
22. Why wont Dem's go for 3? Two words: Ted Kennedy
23. How about allowing drinkers an hour each evening
to go home, say 10 to 11 PM. Dont want to die
by a drunk driver, stay the hell off the road.
A bunch will crash into each other and die
leaving the talented drinking drivers alive who
are obvious multitasking machines. These fine
individuals that remain could form F.A.M.M.
Fathers Against Mad Mothers.
25. I think 7 years in prison is too much. Just take their liciense away.