Probation?

Probation?

When it comes to intoxication assault and intoxication manslaughter the last words a victim or their family wants to hear is that the offender is given probation. In the past few weeks those words were spoken one too many times to the disdain of the victims and their families. This form of punishment for a crime that takes forethought seems so outrages, why?  Because we all know that we shouldn’t drink and drive everyone who drives knows that all it takes is on moment of inattention for a crash to happen. Just a few months ago I watched as a woman put her car in reverse as she went to back out of a parking spot. She reached over for something and the car took off backwards at a high rate of speed and over a curb. as she past in front of me I saw the look of terror in her eyes as the car bounced off the side of a bus stop and slammed into the nail salon behind it. As I ran towards the car I was thinking about the people inside the shop, hoping that nobody was hurt. When I got to the car I saw that it had hit the interior wall and stopped there.  I opened the car door and asked her if she was alright, she was. I then went into the shop through the hole in the glass and knelt down to see if anyone was under or behind the car. I held my breath not knowing what I was about to see. Luckily the area that the car came through was not occupied and no one was hurt.  It took just one second for this lady to take her foot of the clutch and send the car racing into the building. If something like this can happen while someone is sober what about those that think they can handle a car when they are impaired. They make the conscious choice to drink knowing that they’ll be driving later and it’s that choice that makes this crime inexcusable and requires accountability not probation. But we live in a society where others live the old idiom “there but for the grace of God go I” or in plain English - I would likely have experienced or done the same bad thing if God had not been watching over me or some variation of that. So some jurors and judges have that mind set when deciding the punishment of a drunk driver that hurt or killed someone and we get these lenient sentences. Leaving the victim to see no justice and feel victimized again.  With those that choose to drink and drive acting negligently should it not be DWI + DEADLY CONDUCT. The Texas PENAL CODE   states  in Sec. 22.05.   (a) A person commits an offense of DEADLY CONDUCT:  if he recklessly engages in conduct that places another in imminent danger of serious bodily injury. But for now we’re faced with the knowledge that the next person that hurts or kills someone while driving drunk could just get off with probation. And the victims or their families are sentenced to a life heartache and pain. Justice will continue to be held away at arm’s length as long as we as a society continue to accept and practice this deadly conduct.

Those are my thoughts.

What do you think?