There are two bills making the rounds in the Nebraska Legislature regarding drunken-driving laws, and I feel I need to cover an issue I have with our current drunken-driving laws that have been highlighted by these bills and give my opinion on what is being proposed in these two bills. First let me say, the problem with an issue like drunken-driving is that when a horrific accident occurs everybody remembers it and responds to it, but the hundreds of times that someone drives above the legal limit and arrives at their destination without incident, there is no subsequent article in the newspaper, nor legislation passed in response to it. Legislation in response to tragedy is notoriously a bad idea. That being said I don’t have a problem with new legislation in this area of law and in the case of Bill 675 I wonder if it goes far enough. Before I get to that, I want to address one issue I have with our current law that will be even more of a problem if the other DUI bill, LB 667 is passed.
According to this article by Martha Stoddard, “under current law, people arrested on suspicion of drunken driving receive a 30-day temporary driver’s license, followed by a 90-day license revocation.” My issue is obviously with the idea that punishment is being meted out to people who have been arrested on the suspicion of a crime, rather than after being convicted of the crime. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “no person … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In layman’s terms this means that citizens of this country should not be punished until convicted by a court of law. Ideas like these are what separate this country from tyrannical regimes like those in the Middle East that are fortunately being overthrown as we speak. I understand that if this is the one and only case of punishment before conviction it is not anything to get too worked up about, odds are if somebody was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving they were more than likely guilty of that crime anyway, but I hate to bend at all on an issue like this that has such a fundamental importance to our country. Legislative Bill 667 proceeds further in this direction as it basically requires ignition interlock devices to be installed by those individuals arrested for drunken driving, with the cost being born by those individuals, so I am against passage of this bill.
Regarding LB 675, let me start by saying that I am all about the rights of the individual to life, liberty and property. Usually my focus is on the government threatening to impinge on those rights as you have seen and will see throughout the life of this blog. However, individuals can just as easily take those rights away from others and I want equally to ensure that they are not allowed to do so. LB 675 “would set a two-year minimum prison sentence for people convicted of fifth-offense driving under the influence” as well as doubling fines for convictions, among other things. I actually question whether this goes far enough. A two year minimum penalty for a fifth-offense DUI seems too lenient. Remember, if someone drives drunk they do not always cause a wreck, at the same time they do not always get caught. If someone gets caught for a third and fourth and fifth time, they have driven drunk far more than that. These people are a danger to society and a danger to deprive others of their life and property when they inevitably cause accidents while driving drunk. I would rather see two years for a fourth offense and even longer for a fifth. That being said I understand that .08% Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) being the legal limit is bogus. You can have that level of BAC and be a perfectly good driver. So I would be lenient on drivers who get caught operating a motor vehicle at that state of inebriation. But if somebody is getting caught for DUI 3 or more times, they are not mildly drunk, they are the swerving in and out of lanes, running red lights, seeing double level of drunk and that is why they are getting caught that many times, and those people need to be severely punished.
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