It's a woman's right to do whatever she wants with her own body. Including pour a bottle of wine into it and then drive a car with it.

Unfortunately, I've had far too much exposure to addicts. The way to help an addict is not for legal authorities to give him/her "time to fix the problem." By default, addicts are not inclined to "fix" the problem without a triggering event.

It's the old "how many addicts does it take to change a light bulb?" joke. The answer is "only one, but he has to want to change." "Oops, I hit some cars last night" is not going to make the addict want to change. Having to take the bus because he totaled his car is probably not going to do it either. Unfortunately, having to face every day knowing you killed someone while under the influence won't always do it either.

For some, the triggering event can be fairly minor (e.g., GW Bush waking up hung over at 40 and realizing this is no way for an adult to behave). For others, that event will, by necessity, be substantial - i.e., "hitting rock bottom."

Getting away with a DUI (again) is not likely to be a triggering event; going to jail for the latest one might have been. She's already had two prior DUIs which did nothing to alter her behavior or mindset.

Addicts have to hit a point at which they can no longer rationalize their behavior before they will recognize a need to fix it. Some never will, and addicts can rationalize even the most heinous or ridiculous behavior in ways non-addicts cannot fathom.

She will rationalize drunk driving again. "An off-duty police officer pulled her from the car, and Parry, who was banned from the road at the time, told him she had drunk a bottle of wine and 'shouldn't be driving.'" She'd already been banned from the road. What does this judge think leniency will do for her at this stage?

And, contrary to her lawyer's statement, downing an entire bottle of wine then driving on the freeway is not the act of someone who "had begun to tackle her alcohol intake."

Sure, she'd been clean in terms of DUI from May 2018, but that doesn't mean she hadn't been drinking to excess that entire time. Nor does it mean she hadn't driven drunk; just that she hadn't been caught doing it.

This woman is going to kill someone someday. And the one person who had the legal standing to do something to prevent it just kicked the can down the road.

A former co-worker shot and killed her husband (of one month) in cold blood. She was sentenced to five years. With parole, she wound up actually serving a bit less than four years.

Was she fleeing the relationship at that exact moment and needed the booze to work up the guts? Otherwise I'm not seeing a corelation.

This is England, not the U.S.; however, as Cousin Dave suggested with the incident he shared is that our justice system tends to coddle women when it comes to crime. They not only serve shorter sentences than a man with similar crimes and similar history, they are less likely to be arrested or spend time in jail before trial.

The drunk driver owes restitution to those whose cars she damaged. This would be justice. Punishment (and imprisonment) is the opposite of justice. No one is returned to their pre-violation condition, and people are robbed ("taxed") to fund the imprisonment and the court.

http://blog.kentforliberty.com/2015/11/open-letter-to-vincent-heredia.html

The drunk driver owes restitution to those whose cars she damaged. This would be justice. ~ Kent McManigal at April 15, 2019 9:39 AM

Not quite so simple, Kent.

She also owes restitution to the society whose laws and safety she willfully violated. This is not a matter of "oh, she smashed a few cars so pay up," it's a matter of "oh, she put lives in danger" negligence.

Women are more likely to commit nonviolent crimes like shoplifting and check fraud and less likely to commit violent crimes than men. However, this "less likely" does not mean they should get a lesser punishment, but that is what happens. It perhaps reflects the natural tendency to protect women.

A former co-worker shot and killed her husband (of one month) in cold blood. She was sentenced to five years. With parole, she wound up actually serving a bit less than four years.

Personally, I think that anybody doing a bid for murder should do between 20 years and execution. While criminal justice reforms, such as the one just signed into law by President Trump, can be a wonderful thing, they can also go too far. And, if 20 years is a suitable punishment for kidnapping somebody, it is certainly a suitable MINIMUM for murder.

"The drunk driver owes restitution to those whose cars she damaged. This would be justice."

Everyone has a simple plan that will not work.

Let's sat several cars are hit. One car was $$$, but was not used regularly. The next one was $, but was then not available for a medical emergency in which someone died. The third was just broken to undrivability, and the owner lost her job and then her apartment.

Now, the drunk driver CANNOT pay for those things. Where's your restitution now?

Every law - although most will not even think about this - is the result of offenses people think are PUNISHABLE. Restitution is part of this, and can be called for by the judge, but the law must strike a balance between utter forgiveness and Draco's finality. It must be useful.

Restitution won't stop this drunk from driving. Funny you don't mention that. That suggests your opinion is not useful.

Patrick is correct. The term for this is the Female Sentencing Discount.

It's also not an equality that feminists fight for i.e. A woman should receive the same sentence as a man.

"Was she fleeing the relationship at that exact moment and needed the booze to work up the guts? "

No. They were divorcing (having both concluded that they should not have married in the first place), and he was sitting at her kitchen table writing out a rather sizable check (thousands) to her to cover her expenses. She tiptoed up behind him and put a gun to the back of his head and shot him point blank. From what I had seen of her at work, I was not totally surprised. She had struck me as someone who was ill-tempered and carried grudges.

Kent for "Liberty" gives Libertarians a bad name.

The drunk driver owes restitution to those whose cars she damaged.

To the extent financial restitution is possible, the victims will get it, unless Parry didn't have auto insurance (in which case that's another crime she got away with). But that's a separate issue from the drunk driving itself, which is a crime even when it doesn't result in damage to an innocent party. That has to be dealt with. Maybe imprisonment isn't the answer, but there has to be something.

Maybe imprisonment isn't the answer, but there has to be something. ~ Rex Little at April 15, 2019 7:54 PM

And that something won't be flowers and tears at an intervention. People are focusing on the fact that she's an alcoholic and arguing that imprisoning her will not fix that.

Folks, nothing you can do will. She is the only one who can fix that. And to get her over an addict's habitual rationalizing of her bad behavior, she has to hit a wall, hard.

This type of biased "justice" is so endemic, there's a forum that specializes in it: www.reddit.com/r/pussypass

It's yet another reason that all forms of immunity need to be purged from our legal system. Prosecutors are never going to go after these crooked judges because they're friends with them. But give victims (including the men who get unequal treatment) the right to prosecute them and it will be a whole new ball game.

"Punishment (and imprisonment) is the opposite of justice."

The opposite of the useless progressive concept of justice, yes.

Real justice involves the consequences of bad choices sucking sufficiently to outweigh the perceived benefits.