Quote:
Originally Posted by Mindfulness.
Hi there,
I agree with the fact that drinking is extremely dangerous while driving. There are a lot of factors that can influence our blood alcohol reading to be over the legal limit which impacts our ability to drive. Not only does it put your life in danger, but those around you as well.
|
Yeah, it helps to think that as bad as this situation is, I could have gone to prison for a long time if i had a major accident (and I have gotten in car accidents, but not while drinking). There is a girl named Jamie Komoroski in South Carolina who had a pretty similar relationship to alcohol as me and very much loved to party. What is crazy is that her instagram is still up and you can see her posts in the days leading up to an accident that would drastically change her life. She was having an excellent time/enjoying life. Was not a bad person, but loved to have fun. She ended up with DUI manslaughter on a bride on her wedding night. I believe she also injured the groom. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but with credit for time served on house arrest...so something like 22 years and she will have to serve 85 percent of it. This has clearly had a toll on her mental health as she no longer looks like she used to. Rapid weight changes and a generally miserable look on her face. Of course, everyone is commenting on her appearance on social media. She no longer looks like a stereotypical sorority girl. While she experiences remorse, she is understandably very upset about her situation, and she is getting roasted for that as well (ie. "She only cares about herself!" is posted everywhere online and possibly influenced her sentence). I can't imagine how any of that must feel. I don't think it is realistic for someone to not grieve over such a sentence even if the sentence was for doing something illegal. At the end of the day, it probably felt like a total black swan event for her. She was not a hardened criminal. Just an ordinary girl who had a bit too much to drink one night before driving.
I disagree with the sentence though and the way our justice system works. There are other cases of people getting much less time in states with similar laws. For example, Florida is also a tough-on-crime state with the 85 percent rule and there is a case of a man getting 10 years for a very high BAC fiery car crash (did not notice traffic was backed up on the interstate and rear ended a car at highway speeds, causing a fatal pileup). He has had more than 5 DUIs (maybe more like 10) in various states and as a result had also been caught driving on a suspended license enough times for it to be considered felony disregard of driving privileges. He was still racking up DUIs even though his driving privilege was permanently revoked. 10 years vs anything higher also makes the time much easier. It allowed him to be put in minimum security and is serving out his sentence at a work camp and not a "big time" prison. There does not seem to be much consistency between cases unfortunately. Her case was more publicized and that was undoubtedly a factor in her sentence. It was also likely a factor that the woman she killed just happened to be on her wedding night and this resulted in much more outrage. I don't think WHO you accidentally kill during an involuntary manslaughter should matter. The man could have faced 20 years easily if the judge gave the max sentence for the manslaughter and also sentenced the felony driving while suspended consecutively and not concurrently (and while I am not a lawyer, I think that would be justified because his repeated driving while suspended was somewhat of a separate entity as it occurred multiple times over a long period). He got 5 years for the driving while suspended and 10 for the manslaughter, but they are being served together for a total of 10 years.