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 sebster wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Ideas like deliberacy and culpability are pretty central to law, they are what makes the difference between a loan and a theft, or an accident and assault.

There are also degrees of difference between a true accident, recklessness and negligence.

Absolutely! That's what I was trying to convey. Culpability is one of the most important factors in separating true accidents, recklessness, negligence, manslaughter, murder, self defence, entrapment, duress, insanity, and probably infinite points in between... Without considering culpability those things can all look the the same ("you killed someone"). That is why it's so important to approach it honestly.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You may not have control while you are drinking, however you did make a conscious decision to get drunk in the first place. Thats why you still should get held accountable for your actions, just not as much as if you'd deliberately killed someone, depending on the circumstances.

That's true enough, but we also make the conscious decision to step out our front door, and a bunch of other concious decisions that we don't expect to eventually lead to someone's death. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I would emphasise that it is not just black and white. A lot of people drink and don't drive or kill anyone, so there must be some other factors at work too.

Making a decision to act recklessly is itself the crime IMO. Thats why getting drunk itself is a crime in many places(in public anyway). Its basically consciously saying "damn the consequences" and doing something that could be a danger to yourself and others, weather someone actually gets hurt or not you've still done something wrong.

When one chooses to walk out their door they don't do so knowing there is a tangible risk of causing harm to others, quite the opposite. The same cannot be said for drinking and driving. The fact is the punishment must not only account for the crime, but account for incidents where the risk was taken without penalty. Put another way, the punishment primarily exists as a method to ensure that people don't do it in the first place. Thus, the punishment must be severe enough that even a logic-impaired drunk person would reconsider their actions. Of course there is a lot of grey area (it is unrealistic to try and dissuade EVERY potential criminal) but you get the idea.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Other than having a good lawyer, what does just being rich do? Let you pay fines a little easier?

It's not actually what he's talking about, but fines and wealth are a very important thing to talk. If fines are not enacted in proportion to wealth and income, then they lose their impact. If you have a $10K fine on your average worker, that's a big deal, but a multi-millionare? A drop in the bucket.

I'm sort of conflicted about that.

On one hand, you are correct that they lose their impact. but then again you are changing the punishment depending on the characteristics of the offender which are unrelated to the crime(you aren't applying equal justice. Its discrimination). Especially since if the incomes are closer it becomes a little silly, why should someone who makes 40k pay a smaller fine than someone who makes 50k? And at some point for the really wealthy it would be flat out stupid, billionaire throws a cup out his car window and has to pay 10 grand. A janitor does it and has to pay $50.

Maybe we should ditch fines entirely for individuals and replace them with community service or something that would suck equally for everyone.

Oh, it's not a cut and dried issue, absolutely. It's one of those things that will probably never be solved for everybody's satisfaction.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
When one chooses to walk out their door they don't do so knowing there is a tangible risk of causing harm to others, quite the opposite.The same cannot be said for drinking and driving.

No one said that was the same. By the time a drunk person chooses to get in a car, they have already lost the capacity for sober thought (clearly different on a number of levels).

The comparison was, in fact, made between walking out your door and choosing (while sober) to have a drink. If you are walking out your door and getting in a car, then the chances of you killing someone are probably an order of magnitude greater than if you're just sat at home having a beer on the sofa. The decision to "get drunk" isn't always something you can pinpoint. It might not even be deliberate, maybe you didn't eat enough that day, or you usually drink 5% Rose, and didn't realise the bottle of Pino Noir you've been hammering is a much stronger wine.

My point was, where do you draw the line? It isn't at the first drink, because having one drink and driving is usually legal. Maybe the third drink? Sure, if you get in your car when you know you're over the limit, you're consciously committing a crime (even if you are a bit tipsy). But what about the 16th drink? What if you run out the house with no pants on, and jump in your car, and drive off through your own hedge... do you still know what you are doing? Is it still because of that 3rd drink? or was it the 4th? Maybe the 7th? At what point while you were on your sofa drinking, did you consciously take that tangible risk of endangering other people?

 Smacks wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
When one chooses to walk out their door they don't do so knowing there is a tangible risk of causing harm to others, quite the opposite.The same cannot be said for drinking and driving.

No one said that was the same. By the time a drunk person chooses to get in a car, they have already lost the capacity for sober thought (clearly different on a number of levels).

The comparison was made between walking out your door and choosing (while sober) to have a drink. If you are walking out your door and getting in a car, then the chances of you killing someone are probably an order of magnitude greater than if you're just sat at home having a beer on the sofa. The decision to "get drunk" isn't always something you can pinpoint. It might not even be deliberate, maybe you didn't eat enough that day, or you usually drink 5% Rose, and didn't realise the bottle Pino Noir you've been hammering is a much stronger wine.

My point was, where do you draw the line? It isn't at the first drink, because having one drink and driving is usually legal. Maybe the third drink? Sure, if you get in your car when you know you're over the limit, you're consciously committing a crime (even if you are a bit tipsy). But what about a 16th drink? What if you run out the house with no pants on, and jump in your car, and drive off through your own hedge... do you still know what you are doing? Is it still because of that 3rd drink? or was it the 4th? Maybe the 7th? At what point while you were on your sofa drinking, did you consciously take that tangible risk of endangering other people?

It isn't a case of one choice as much as many; the choice to have the first drink may have been only a small mistake. But then it was compounded by the choice to have another, then another, and so on. Even if one did lose control of themselves completely through drinking, they still made choices which led them to getting that drunk. It IS a very fuzzy grey area, but humans are capable of thinking out these things and evaluating them before deciding on a course of action. If one chose not to do so, or chose to do so insufficiently, well that's one of those smaller mistakes. Put a different way, choosing to have one drink does not get a person so heavily influenced, but if one drink is enough to impair someone enough that they will chose to have a second, then a third, etc, then they should have evaluated the risk of the first drink better. Someone does not just become wasted behind the wheel; one way or another it was a chain of decisions that person was responsible for.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It isn't a case of one choice as much as many; the choice to have the first drink may have been only a small mistake. But then it was compounded by the choice to have another, then another, and so on. Even if one did lose control of themselves completely through drinking, they still made choices which led them to getting that drunk. It IS a very fuzzy grey area, but humans are capable of thinking out these things and evaluating them before deciding on a course of action. If one chose not to do so, or chose to do so insufficiently, well that's one of those smaller mistakes. Put a different way, choosing to have one drink does not get a person so heavily influenced, but if one drink is enough to impair someone enough that they will chose to have a second, then a third, etc, then they should have evaluated the risk of the first drink better. Someone does not just become wasted behind the wheel; one way or another it was a chain of decisions that person was responsible for.

Well I agree with that 100%, but I would also add that it can take time for people to recognise that they have a problem. A lot of people learn the hard way to recognise when they've had enough, or know not to drink because they've made mistakes in the past. I don't know much about this specific kid, so I'm not defending him, but generally speaking if someone is 16/17 then they are barely able to make responsible decisions when sober, never mind when drunk.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Other than having a good lawyer, what does just being rich do? Let you pay fines a little easier?

We show more empathy to people with status and power. It’s a very weird thing, but hard to deny once you see it. And in countries with very stark differences in wealth and status the effect is quite amazing. Arudhati Roy called it the queer compassion of the poor for the rich (to paraphrase).

And it’s very strange because it’s not a thing you’d ever see on the internet, or really when anyone is talking about rich people in a general or hypothetical sense. But when people deal with actual real people in the real world you just watch it happen, there will be sympathy for a rich person for dealing with the kind of thing the rest of us deal with every day.

I’ve got no doubt it impacted this verdict. A poor kid or a middle class kid comes in with record of driving while drunk, having killed people while hammered and driving 30 miles over the limit, and you think they’d get probation for claiming they were brought up thinking they had special privileges? But a rich kid comes in, and somehow that becomes a believable defense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
Absolutely! That's what I was trying to convey. Culpability is one of the most important factors in separating true accidents, recklessness, negligence, manslaughter, murder, self defence, entrapment, duress, insanity, and probably infinite points in between... Without considering culpability those things can all look the the same ("you killed someone"). That is why it's so important to approach it honestly.

Cool, we’re on the same page then.

 Smacks wrote:
My point was, where do you draw the line?

0.05, or 0.08, depending on the jurisdiction. That’s the line. And it sounds like I’m being a smart arse there but I’m not. There has to be a line drawn, and so that’s the line picked for drunkenness. Just like we had to pick an age for adulthood, so 18 was picked (21 for some things). So 0.05 was picked for drunkenness, people can argue that they can handle that much alcohol and still drive okay, and some of them might even be right, but a line had to be picked and that was it.

You are absolutely right. The law doesn't care how you got drunk, what chain of accidents, excuses or mistakes you made to do it. The law just says if your blood alcohol level is above the limit, and you get caught driving, even worse if you have a crash and even kill someone, you are guilty.

So don't. It's up to you how you manage not to.

 sebster wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
My point was, where do you draw the line?

0.05, or 0.08, depending on the jurisdiction. That’s the line. And it sounds like I’m being a smart arse there but I’m not. There has to be a line drawn, and so that’s the line picked for drunkenness. Just like we had to pick an age for adulthood, so 18 was picked (21 for some things). So 0.05 was picked for drunkenness, people can argue that they can handle that much alcohol and still drive okay, and some of them might even be right, but a line had to be picked and that was it.

EDIT: That isn't really the line I'm talking about. I'm talking more about the point where you're sober enough to choose to have another drink, and that is the same as choosing to kill someone. It's a separate issue from driving. In fact, it would not even necessarily need to involve a car.

There is an argument that goes something like:

1: Joe is fully responsible for how drunk he gets.
2: Joe killed someone, because he was drunk.
3: Therefore Joe is fully responsible for killing someone.

I am trying to contest this argument by pointing out that the first premise is not true. And also that choosing to get drunk and even choosing to drive while drunk, is not the same as choosing to kill someone. It's a non sequitur.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The law doesn't care how you got drunk, what chain of accidents, excuses or mistakes you made to do it. The law just says if your blood alcohol level is above the limit, and you get caught driving ... you are guilty.

Which is fine when we are talking about driving, but if we are talking about culpability in someone's death, and sentencing, then the law actually does care, as it should.

Also if someone spiked your drink, the law would care. How you got drunk does matter.

This case is about drunk driving.

If someone were spiked while drinking a non-alcoholic drink, and then went and drove before the affect took place, then yes, it's not really their fault.

I do remember a user here arguing that to them they would still deserve the death penalty.


If someone were spiked while drinking several alcoholic drinks then really, they're still going to be at fault.

If someone were not spiked and drank several alcoholic drinks then they're going to be at fault.

 MrDwhitey wrote:
If someone were spiked while drinking a non-alcoholic drink, and then went and drove before the affect took place, then yes, it's not really their fault.

I do remember a user here arguing that to them they would still deserve the death penalty.

IIRC, the argument was that even if the driver had a mini-stroke, they still should get the death penalty, because all that matters is outcomes, not reasons.

Oh, PeterWiggin, you were a candle that just burned too bright for these forums.

I expected to see him on here screaming about the Zika virus and trying to hose us down in hand sanitizer. I feel like we missed out on a great opportunity. :(

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This case is about drunk driving.

DUIs are ten a penny. This case got attention because it is about someone who killed four people, and didn't go to prison.

 Smacks wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This case is about drunk driving.

DUIs are ten a penny. This case got attention because it is about someone who killed four people, and didn't go to prison.

No, this case got attention because of the Affluenza defense.

 Smacks wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This case is about drunk driving.

DUIs are ten a penny. This case got attention because it is about someone who killed four people, and didn't go to prison.

The point I wanted to make is that it's useless to worry about how the law treats other types of ofences when the case we are looking at actually is about drunk driving.

You make the same point youself by saying that this case got attention because despite being another drunk driving case, the treatment differed radically from other similar cases.