I'd like to talk to you about an important legal issue involving driving under the influence. From what I've seen so far in this forum, I imagine none of you will care, but at least it's out there, here on this forum in case anyone wants to see it. There are situations where someone gets into a vehicle accident and people are killed. It is determined that the person who survived had been drinking alcohol or had been using drugs. However, there are other unique factors in the situation that could have led to the accident. Or it cannot be determined with absolute certainty which party was at fault for the accident. Despite this, the person who had been drinking or using drugs is not given the benefit of the doubt, and it is usually automatically assumed that they are to blame for the accident, and that their use of alcohol/drugs was the cause of the accident. These people end up getting very long prison sentences. One man Paul M. Nigl, 25-years-old, was sentenced to 100 years, after the truck he was driving collided with a car. Two nurses were in that car driving back home early in the morning after working a long third shift. The nurses had also not been wearing seatbelts. Two witnesses initially reported to police at the scene that they saw the car hit the truck, but after being interrogated at the sheriff's office they changed their stories. Nigl almost died in the crash, and lost a lot of blood. A blood test administered immediately after showed that his blood alcohol level was over the legal limit. However, it could have been possible that was only because of the extensive blood loss. The alcohol in the man's stomach would have had very little fluid to dilute into when it moved into the man's blood stream, which would have taken between 30 minutes to 2 hours. (The trial took place in 2001 in Winnebago County, Wisconsin) Use of alcohol/drugs while driving may be illegal, but is it fair to hold an individual entirely responsible for accident deaths, and make the assumption that it must have been the use of alcohol/drugs that was the cause of the accident? Because it is very very common in the legal system to make that automatic assumption without really any particular proof that was true. Another story involved a young man who was driving a big jeep raised very high up on a suspension system. The jeep was at an intersection and as soon as the light turned green, the man hit the accelerator hard zooming into the intersection to make a left turn. Unknown to him, the traffic light system was set up in such a way that when the light turned green, the crosswalk signs to sides turned to "walk" at the same time. (At this intersection, there was not a separate arrow light for turning left) Right after the light turned green and he was accelerating, an elderly couple who were standing at the corner began walking into the crosswalk area. The old man and woman were deep in a conversation, distracted, and not paying attention to what was happening around them or if any cars were coming. The young man in the jeep did not immediately see them because the jeep was so high up off the ground, it was harder to see pedestrians entering into a crosswalk down below right in front of the jeep. He slammed his breaks as hard as he could, but the jeep did not come to a complete stop immediately, and bumped into the elderly pedestrians at about 15 miles per hour (though did not run over them). The elderly man had thrown himself in front of the woman to protect her, but that ended up being the cause of her death, since she fell over and hit her head on the hard pavement, with his weight pushing down on top of her. Potentially just an accident, except for the fact that the young man had been smoking a little bit of marijuana before he started driving. And one witness saw him take one puff from a joint that one of his friends temporarily handed to him from the backseat, while he was waiting at the intersection right before the light turned green. He ended up being sentenced to 8 years in prison. And of course, he will never be legally allowed to drive ever again. (Marijuana had recently been legalized in the state, at the time this happened, but it was still illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana)
