The insanity continues…
Waco Man Gets Life Sentence for Driving Drunk
Waco, TX. June 10 — A man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of drunken driving — his ninth such charge since 1984.
Russell Don Sneed faced a minimum 25-year penalty when McLennan County jurors sentenced him in Waco on Thursday, a day after his conviction.
Defense attorney Melanie Walker had told jurors no one was seriously injured in last year’s rollover accident and her client suffers from alcoholism.
However, prosecutor Lauren McLeod said alcoholism is no excuse for criminal behavior.
The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that the 52-year-old Sneed and his wife both testified that she was driving. Karroll Sneed told jurors she fled over fears of being jailed on misdemeanor warrants. Sneed said he took the blame out of concern for his wife, who had recently suffered a stroke.
Life in prison for a DUI? Rape gets 15 years, 2nd degree murder 25. Just an aberration, right? Wrong. See, for example, Third DUI = Life in Prison (Mississippi, alcoholic with 2 priors), Another Life Sentence for Drunk Driving (Texas, alcoholic with 9 priors), 99 Years for Drunk Driving (Texas, alcoholic with 7 priors).
One of the premier DUI attorneys in the country, Troy McKinney of Houston, made an Open Records Act demand on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, asking: How many Texans are serving sentences of 60 years to life in prison for drunk driving? Not for drunk driving resulting in injury or death — just for drunk driving (or driving over .08%). The response from the Department:
21 to 25 years 125
26 to 30 years 39
31 to 40 years 55
41 to 59 years 16
And finally:
60 to 98 years 23
99 years 6 Life 13
Repeat: These are sentences just for drunk driving or driving over .08% — not for DWI causing death or serious injury. To trigger the longer sentences, the DWI was at least the offender’s fourth offense.
It would be a fairly safe assumption that these prisoners are alcoholics. In other words, life in prison for having a genetically-predisposed disease and being unable to control it…..without help.
So, what if they got help? What does it cost to keep a citizen in prison for the rest of his life? For even one year? And what does it cost to offer that person rehabilitative therapy? Even, perhaps, to involuntarily commit him to a facility for treatment of the disease?
Justice and humanity aside, do the math….
For a more effective, inexpensive and humane approach to dealing with drunk drivers who are suffering from alcoholism, see Time for a Change.The post Life in Prison…For Drunk Driving appeared first on Law Offices of Taylor and Taylor - DUI Central.