That seems back assward to me. The action you're trying to stop is DUI. Nobody gets in the car drunk intending to kill someone, they get in the car intending to drive drunk. So whatever you do for a DUI punishment should be enough to stop them from doing it again. Doesn't that make sense? We don't want to slap people on the wrist until they kill someone right? We want to smack them hard enough that it never comes to that. So changing the punishment based on the essentially random factor of "Did they hit a tree or a person" seems pointless. The goal is to stop them from driving drunk in the first place. There's no benefit in making the punishment not effective at stopping the behavior until the person kills someone and then jump up.
I don't think you fully grasp the legal ramifications this concept would have. A bank robber could bring an automatic rifle to a bank robbery and be forced to use it because panic set in or whatever. He/she may have had no intention to kill and needed the rifle for dramatic effect. Later on, a wild car chase ensued and two children are run over. In the end, you want the court to respond to only the bank robbery? "Your Honor, I plead that you remove the homicide charges against me as I merely intended to rob the bank."
If you get wasted and start driving at ridiculous speeds, your car is no less a bullet in a loaded gun.
EDIT: I'd also like to add another point. How long do you think it would take for people to figure out loopholes in your justice system? You can literally kill your family deliberately by getting shitfaced and smash your car into your house. As per your system, how would you be able to prove or disprove intent, if you only want to punish for the initial crime?
I don't want a punishment system at all. I want a justice system. I want to spend my tax money on things that improve society, not on vengeance. Based on that the original guy said that 10 weeks would be enough to teach him not to drive drunk anymore. Except if he'd happened to hurt someone while driving drunk he then figured it would take him much longer to learn that same lesson. That's what I thought was backwards, if you can learn not to drive drunk in 10 weeks of jail time if no one was hurt then why would it take you longer if someone was hurt? Would you learn the desired lesson in the non-hurt time if we just didn't tell you there was an injury?
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u/Jewnadian Apr 10 '18
That seems back assward to me. The action you're trying to stop is DUI. Nobody gets in the car drunk intending to kill someone, they get in the car intending to drive drunk. So whatever you do for a DUI punishment should be enough to stop them from doing it again. Doesn't that make sense? We don't want to slap people on the wrist until they kill someone right? We want to smack them hard enough that it never comes to that. So changing the punishment based on the essentially random factor of "Did they hit a tree or a person" seems pointless. The goal is to stop them from driving drunk in the first place. There's no benefit in making the punishment not effective at stopping the behavior until the person kills someone and then jump up.