\"Land of the Unfree\"

[Will Robinson]

Jeff, if there was a blood test for didn't sleep for two days...then we could write a law for those that test positive for crashing their car while sleep deprived. Since there already are a few ways to determine that someone is/was impaired by using drugs we go ahead and impliment that law now.
The notion that we have to be perfect or not try at all is stupid.

[Jeff250]

Jeff, if there was a blood test for didn't sleep for two days...then we could write a law for those that test positive for crashing their car while sleep deprived.

Will, then you are in favor of a law that adds additional penalty for committing a crime when sleep-deprived provided that there was an easy way to test for it? (It's that simple of a question.)

In one particular implementation, it might make every murder carry a greater sentence (though even in the expanded "negligence" definition I don't envision it as applying to every murder) -- but the point is, it makes a LOT of crimes carry a greater sentence in certain circumstances, while decriminalizing responsible use of certain substances.

Well, it's hard to say if tacking on some time to some crime like, say, battery, for being, say, drunk is going to act as an effective deterrant to the crime of battery itself. I don't think that anyone thinks, "What if I beat somebody up?" before they pick up a glass, and I don't think that realistically additional criminal penalties are going to change that.

Even if it were effective, I think that it neglects another important function of the law--something like justice or fairness or equality manifest in the problem of "moral luck" (or perhaps in this case more like "legal luck"). You already see this problem with drunk driving--if you are caught driving drunk, you face a stiff penalty by virtue of your negligence, but if you are driving drunk and accidentally hit somebody crossing the street, then you are in especially deep ★■◆●. Both people chose to do the same thing--drive drunk--but both had vastly different penalties.

This problem would seem to be magnified with the plan that you've laid out. Now we'd be saying something like getting too drunk is negligent, but we won't even punish it at all unless you just so happen to unintentionally do something stupid while being drunk. In the drunk driving incident, at least both people are penalized to an extent for their negligence, but in this example, the only person being punished for their negligence is the person who unintentionally did something stupid, plus he has the additional penalty for the crime itself.

What do you think?

[roid]

If you kill someone in premeditated murder, it's still more serious (greater punishment/time) than killing someone outof negligence right?

Coz it's easier to protect society from a negligent idiot than a murderer.

- Run someone over (causing death) accidentally while sober. Not that serious, if it can be proven that it could have happened to anyone and your driving is ok.

- Run someone over (causing death) accidentally while sober, and you are proven to be a bad driver. This is more serious, as you can do it again if action isn't taken to correct the problem. You should be sent to driving school or barred from driving. Because you should NOT have been driving if you suck, it could be said to be a form of neglect that you yourself didn't consider your bad driving a problem worth remedying.

- Run someone over (causing death) while drunk. Shows neglect. You should have considered your drunk state to be a problem, and you will do it again if action isn't taken to correct the problem. If you can be taught to not drive while drunk, then this should happen (this would be a form of drug education). If not then you should be barred from driving.

- Run someone over (causing death) while sober, on purpose, at the heat of the moment. Very serious, probabaly indicating a mental problem related to self-control. Reform is possible, perhaps with medication. But as with insulin dependant diabetics and ppl prone to seizures - piloting a vehicle (ie: car) should be somewhat restricted incase of a medication lapse.

- Run someone over (causing death) while sober, on purpose, premeditated. The most serious, it indicates that you are most likely to do this again and likely have no remose. Reform is unlikely, such a person would probabaly be locked away for good.

when drawn out like this the additional penalties (more as you go further down the list) are justifyable. It all seems like a question of how likely the person is to do it again.
When a cop nabs someone for DUI and lets them off with just a clip round the ear, it perhaps indicates that the cop considers it to not be a problem - Because in the cop's mind reoffending is either unlikely, or DUI is not a serious threat.
Whether these assumptions on the cop's part are correct or not is a major point. Perhaps the cop needs just as much drug education as the driver does.

[Will Robinson]

Jeff, if there was a blood test for didn't sleep for two days...then we could write a law for those that test positive for crashing their car while sleep deprived.

Will, then you are in favor of a law that adds additional penalty for committing a crime when sleep-deprived provided that there was an easy way to test for it? (It's that simple of a question.)

I'm in favor of additional penalties for someone who commits a crime and their willful negligence can be attributed to the circumstances that lead up to their commiting the crime.

In the sleep deprived scenario and many others you allude to I believe we already do have additional punishment. Example, if a person ran their car up on the sidewalk and killed a few pedestrians and the judge was convinced that the accident was caused in part because the driver stayed awake for three days trying to win a contest promoted by some radio station then the driver would be given a much stiffer punishment than if there was no evidence of negligence on his part.

Since drugs are illegal they actually have their own catagory of laws tailored to deal with them.
So, in the hypothetical situation of drugs being decriminalized we suggested that there be stiff penalties included in the law for people who were negligent in their use.
Whether or not you feel a need to write a law to cover every other scenario that would involve any kind of negligence on the part of a criminal is up to you. Drugs have a proven track record of being a catalyst for criminal activity, sleep deprivation does not. It's a simple matter of weighing the possibilities of some activity being more prevalent and sending a strong message with the introduction of specific laws.

[Kilarin]

I don't think we need to add extra penalties for being drunk, high, tripping, or under the influence in whatever way when committing a crime. I think we just need to remove the excuse that it was just:

Run someone over (causing death) while drunk. Shows neglect.

Don't add an extra penalty, just remove the "neglect" aspect and change it to premeditated. If you kill someone while drunk, the law automatically treats it as premeditated because you made the willful choice when you chose to reduce your judgment capacity.

[Zuruck]

Hmmm..drink and drive and get charged with premeditated murder. I'm glad you guys aren't in charge of anything...what's next...jaywalk and get your arm chopped off?

[Kilarin]

Hmmm..drink and drive and get charged with premeditated murder.

Only if you kill someone. And do you not consider that murder? I admit that the premeditated part is quite debatable, but surely the murder part isn't under question?

[Lothar]

Well, it's hard to say if tacking on some time to some crime like, say, battery, for being, say, drunk is going to act as an effective deterrant to the crime of battery itself. I don't think that anyone thinks, "What if I beat somebody up?" before they pick up a glass

They don't think that specifically, but they do think "what if I do something stupid?" beforehand. It's why some people take a designated driver with them, or will hand their keys to the bartender. People understand that alcohol influences them such that driving won't be safe, so they take precautions -- and if they don't, they should be treated as negligent. I think this makes sense to extend to other substances -- if you're going to enter an altered state of mind, take precautions beforehand so that you limit the amount of stupidity you'll engage in. Know what you can handle, know when your judgement is impaired, and know what NOT to do when you're wasted / high / blasted / trippin'.

it neglects another important function of the law--something like justice or fairness or equality manifest in the problem of "moral luck"... we'd be saying something like getting too drunk is negligent, but we won't even punish it at all unless you just so happen to unintentionally do something stupid while being drunk.

I'm not saying "getting too drunk is negligent". I'm saying "getting too drunk without taking appropriate precautions to avoid stupid behavior is negligent". I don't care how drunk you get as long as you do it safely. (This has vastly different application to different people and different states of drunkenness -- my wife needs me to drive and that's about it; others might need to be handcuffed to a post and have drinks delivered to them via robot.)

There's always a luck component involved when you're talking about negligence -- if you weren't paying attention to the baby but nothing bad happened, lucky you. I don't see that as a flaw.

[Jeff250]

There's always a luck component involved when you're talking about negligence

Exactly, and what you laid out intensifies the problem. If you're lucky, you get penalized less (in fact not at all), and if you're unlucky, you get penalized even more.

I don't see that as a flaw.

A lot of people could choose to do the same action, namely be negligent, but only a handful would receive penalties, overly harsh penalties at that, for the same intent. If your view of the law is only to deter crime, and supposing that what you've laid out would most effectively do this, then you could ignore this. But traditionally the law also incorporates some aspect of fairness into it with respect to intent, where all people who intended to do some action X will be punished roughly the same for it. It doesn't seem fair to punish people for what they did not intent to do or punish people who intended and succeeded in doing an action by vastly different amounts.

[Jeff250]

Only if you kill someone. And do you not consider that murder? I admit that the premeditated part is quite debatable, but surely the murder part isn't under question?

Murder by what definition? The legal definition? Some ethical definition? ...The biblical definition?

[Lothar]

A lot of people could choose to do the same action, namely be negligent, but only a handful would receive penalties, overly harsh penalties at that, for the same intent.

I don't believe the penalties would be "overly harsh".

In the case of "accidental" crimes: if you drink and drive (and get caught), the penalties are reasonable for foolishly choosing to operate a motor vehicle when you shouldn't. If you drink and drive, and happen to also get into a wreck, you get the drinking and driving penalty as well as the getting into a wreck penalty. I think that's adequate fairness with respect to intent -- you didn't intend to crash (nobody does, but you're penalized for it anyway), but you did intend to drink and drive.

In the case of "intentional" crimes: if you get drunk and then go beat the hell out of somebody, I see that as worse than beating the hell out of somebody while sober. Again, I don't see a "fairness with respect to intent" as a problem here -- if you intentionally got yourself drunk enough to do something stupid without taking appropriate precautions, AND you intentionally did something stupid (while drunk), you get penalized for both intentional problems.

In the case of getting blasted but not otherwise screwing up: you're either lucky or skilled. Good for you.

It doesn't seem fair to punish people for what they did not intent to do

So do you think manslaughter should NOT be punished?

This seems to be a prerequisite idea -- if you believe "mistakes" should be punished, then adding additional punishment for negligence makes sense. If you don't believe "mistakes" should be punished, you should be arguing against a lot more than just the additional negligence penalty I suggested.

I believe law covers much more than intent. I believe there are some cases in which mistakes should be punished. I believe the law handles this well right now -- "criminal negligence" requires not just making a mistake, but making a really really stupid mistake. It might be a mistake to go driving when you have a bit of a cold, but that's not criminal negligence; it definitely is a mistake to go driving when you're drunk, and that is criminal negligence.

... or punish people who intended and succeeded in doing an action by vastly different amounts.

As detailed above, in the case of intentional crimes while under the influence, I'd say that gives 2 steps of intent, rather than just 1. It's not "success and failure", but 2 steps of intent vs. 1 step of intent.

[Kilarin]

Murder by what definition? The legal definition? Some ethical definition? ...The biblical definition? :p

Unfortunately, the Bible doesn't cover DUI directly. It DOES cover it quite well indirectly if anyone is interested.

If you get drunk and operate heavy machinery and someone is killed, it wasn't just an accident. It was murder that could have been easily prevented.

Treating it as an excusable mistake opens up great arguments for outlawing drugs. Either you are responsible for your own actions, in which case you should be punished for crimes committed under the influence, OR, you are not responsible for your own actions, in which case the government has a legitimate interest in stopping you from doing irresponsible things.

shock value link for emotional manipulation.

And I don't quite get the luck issue. We punish negligence for all crimes differently based on whether you actually hurt someone or not. BUT, quite frankly, I'd be just as happy to see us treat crimes of negligence equally whether someone was actually harmed or not. Let's prosecute every DUI as if someone had actually been killed. That should make our streets safer.

[Jeff250]

So do you think manslaughter should NOT be punished?

That's a fairly complex issue because there are different kinds of manslaughter, all of which involve varying levels of intent. I'm assuming you're speaking of something like involuntary manslaughter or "criminally negligent homicide"? If so, if we really think that criminal negligence is wrong, then we should penalize a person for criminal negligence, regardless of if anyone is hurt via happenstance. So under a traditional "criminally negligent homicide" case, if the guy was criminally negligent and hadn't already been penalized for that, then he should be. So in that sense, yes, involuntary manslaughter should be punished. But I don't see the virtue in additionally punishing somebody for mere happenstance, i.e. the unlucky event that somebody happened to die as a result.

I believe law covers much more than intent. I believe there are some cases in which mistakes should be punished. I believe the law handles this well right now -- "criminal negligence" requires not just making a mistake, but making a really really stupid mistake. It might be a mistake to go driving when you have a bit of a cold, but that's not criminal negligence; it definitely is a mistake to go driving when you're drunk, and that is criminal negligence.

I agree, and every person who drives drunk makes the same internal decision, regardless of whether or not by luck some child happened to be crossing the street. Doesn't it seem fair to give everyone the same penalty, regardless of happenstance?

(Same isn't necessarily equal, but in some way proportional. You might, for example, give a larger penalty for somebody who drove a very long while drunk or a smaller penalty for somebody who was only a bit over the legal bac limit.)

I'd be just as happy to see us treat crimes of negligence equally whether someone was actually harmed or not. Let's prosecute every DUI as if someone had actually been killed. That should make our streets safer.

This is more along the lines of what I'm thinking, except I don't think that the punishment for negligence should be that steep. I'm not sure how steep. Certainly more steep than it is now if we're going to not punish based on luck, but treating all negligence, or even all DUI's, as murders seems unwarranted.

Treating it as an excusable mistake opens up great arguments for outlawing drugs.

Two things. (1) Most are situations are going to fall under "intentional," even if you're drunk/high/etc. It's some of the subtler stuff like involuntarily hitting a pedestrian while driving drunk that is most clearly involuntary, and I agree that that should be regulated.

And (2), parallel to what Lothar pointed out, it could be argued...

I'm not saying "getting too drunk is negligent". I'm saying "getting too drunk without taking appropriate precautions to avoid stupid behavior is negligent".

I think I would slightly modify this to say "... to avoid reckless involuntary behavior," but more or less the same thing. You might take out laws outlawing pot, but put in a few about not driving high and the like.

It was murder

I'm going to ask again by what definition are you calling it murder. I don't think that you can use a legal definition of murder to justify your statement, so if you're going to continue to say this, I'd like to know how you're coming to your definition of murder.

[Lothar]

every person who drives drunk makes the same internal decision, regardless of whether or not by luck some child happened to be crossing the street. Doesn't it seem fair to give everyone the same penalty, regardless of happenstance?

It "seems" fair to ignore the "random" consequences and look only at the stupid/reckless/negligent behavior. It also seems quite UNfair to punish a drunk driver who killed somebody with a small punishment, or to punish a drunk who made it home OK by sheer chance with 10 years in prison.

Life doesn't reward people exactly the same for making the same choices, and IMO neither should the law. It's not just about intent, it's also about results. If I choose to hit somebody and you choose to hit somebody, just depending on the luck of how we swing or how fragile our targets are, one of us might get a stern talking-to and the other might end up in jail. If I choose to kill somebody but my gun jams, and you choose to kill somebody and your gun works, you'll get a longer jail sentence. And that's OK -- law is not only about intent.

[Kilarin]

I'm going to ask again by what definition are you calling it murder. I don't think that you can use a legal definition of murder to justify your statement, so if you're going to continue to say this, I'd like to know how you're coming to your definition of murder.

It seems to me that it's murder by both biblical and secular law:

Ex 21:28-29 If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.

As for the secular courts, they call it CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE

Under our law, a person is guilty of Criminally Negligent Homicide when, with criminal negligence, that person causes the death of another person. The term "criminal negligence" used in this definition has its own special meaning in our law. I will now give you the meaning of that term:
CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE is not the same as that type of negligence you may be familiar with that permits a person injured by ordinary negligence to obtain a monetary judgment in a civil law suit. The carelessness required for criminal negligence is appreciably more serious than that for ordinary civil negligence. A person acts with CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE with respect to a death when that person engages in conduct which creates or contributes to a substantial and unjustifiable risk that another person's death will occur, and when he or she fails to perceive that risk, and when that risk is of such nature and degree that failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.

The principle here is clear. Accidents happen, and we don't blame people who are accidentally responsible for someone elses death. BUT, when the case involves criminal negligence, then it is no longer an accident, it's murder (Homicide), and the murderer is responsible.

[TIGERassault]

Life doesn't reward people exactly the same for making the same choices, and IMO neither should the law.

If you ask me, the law tries to make a good bit of an equal punishment to balance out the fact that life doesn't.

[Jeff250]

As for the secular courts, they call it CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE

Which is a variant of mansluaghter, not murder. Homicide != manslaughter != murder, legally.

Life doesn't reward people exactly the same for making the same choices, and IMO neither should the law.

This reminds me of when people try to justify doing something unfair by saying, "Life isn't always fair." If it's the case that life isn't always fair (and that definitely is the case), then I'm not convinced that life is something deserving of imitation, at least with this respect.

It also seems quite UNfair to punish a drunk driver who killed somebody with a small punishment, or to punish a drunk who made it home OK by sheer chance with 10 years in prison.

Maybe, but I think that this is largely a side effect of having a (to some extent) socially ingrained retributive interpretation of the purpose law. I don't think that anyone has so far expressed that we should create laws for retribution's sake, so we should definitely cast that purpose aside. What remains after that is unclear though.

If I choose to kill somebody but my gun jams

That's why I suggested earlier that the action be both intended and performed. It's not perfect in that it doesn't seem to prevent people from getting lucky like in this example (i.e. intent but no harmful action), but it does seem to prevent people from getting unlucky (i.e. no intent but harmful action). I'd rather have legal luck err on the side of caution.

Besides, you'd at least be able to nab the guy with some negligence-like charge--or at least I think--isn't it illegal in some respect to wave a gun around?

[Kilarin]

As for the secular courts, they call it CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE

Which is a variant of mansluaghter, not murder. Homicide != manslaughter != murder, legally.

Homicide:
1. the killing of one human being by another.
2. a person who kills another; murderer.

While homicide includes manslaughter, it also includes murder.

From wikipedia:

murder requires either the intent to kill, or a state of mind called malice, or malice aforethought, which may involve an unintentional killing but with a willful disregard for life. The less serious offense of manslaughter, on the other hand, is the taking of human life but in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder.

I don't see how anyone can question that operating heavy machinery while drunk qualifies as having a "willful disregard for life"

[Jeff250]

While homicide includes manslaughter, it also includes murder.

Right, legally speaking, all murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murders. That means its possible to errantly refer to a homicide as a murder (which you are doing if you're still maintaining that operating machinery while drunk and accidentally killing somebody qualifies as murder under the legal definition of the word).

[Lothar]

That's why I suggested earlier that the action be both intended and performed. It's not perfect in that it doesn't seem to prevent people from getting lucky like in this example (i.e. intent but no harmful action), but it does seem to prevent people from getting unlucky (i.e. no intent but harmful action).

That's not tremendously different from what I'm suggesting -- intent to harm with no actual action = busted for intent. No intent to harm but harmful action occurs on accident = not busted at all, EXCEPT in the case that your lack of intent is accompanied by a criminally stupid level of negligence, in which case, you're busted for that negligence and the result of it.

I'm not suggesting the busted-for-the-result thing is retributive in the slightest. No; it's preventative. If you know that, by having 12 beers and then driving, you risk injuring someone and getting a REALLY long jail sentence, you're more likely to avoid driving after having 12 beers.

Part of the purpose of the law is justice: giving people what they deserve. Another part is protection: keeping dangerous people off the streets. A third part is discouraging safe behavior: giving people strong incentive not to become dangerous people (even short-term).

[Will Robinson]

Word Lothar.
And in case anyone doubts it is effective, in the '70's they started a campaign against drunk driving and it resulted in major reduction in drunk driving related deaths.

The preventative effects of publicizing the potential for prosecution for the negligence aspect of drug use would go a long way toward reducing the negatives that could follow from the honeymoon affect of decriminalizing drug use.

(Wow, what a sentence!)

[Palzon]

I don't see how anyone can question that operating heavy machinery while drunk qualifies as having a "willful disregard for life"

i think you're a bit out of your element now. they do have such a thing as intoxication manslaughter.

Let me quote you once more to illustrate your confusion on this issue...(italics mine)

Don't add an extra penalty, just remove the "neglect" aspect and change it to premeditated. If you kill someone while drunk, the law automatically treats it as premeditated because you made the willful choice when you chose to reduce your judgment capacity.

I am not a lawyer. But I work with the law. I was a specialist in a very narrow area of the law (I say was because I've now been promoted to Supervisor in the organization - go me! ). Anyway, I'm constantly having to teach new workers about pre-meditation because most make the same assumption you're making. here's the trick to premeditation...it's not premeditating the act that leads to the adverse impact, it's premeditating the adverse impact itself.

Let's say you really must have a pack of Dorals and six pack of Schaeffer Light. You don't want to put your 2 yo in the carseat and the little bugger is sleeping. You leave him home alone while you make a "quick" jaunt to the store. 2 yo can't be left alone. Ever.

Kid wakes up, wanders out of the home, gets struck by a car and killed. You broke the law by failing to provide adequate supervision. You might even face criminal charges (I hope). But it's not premeditated. You did not intend for the adverse impact, death in this case, to occur - even though you premeditated leaving the child alone.

Similarly, there is a big difference between leaving marks with a belt from an overzealous spanking and deliberately applying multiple burns with a cigarette.


furthermore the semantics of the discussion is not that important, especially when most people in this thread are pro-legalization.

Legalize it. The tokers can toke. The tea totalers can...tea total. And we can still fire up a nice D3-LAN game together and drive nowhere.

To Roid:



Run 10 people over because you are a stupid old geezer...pretty f'n serious: http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/10/20/marke ... index.html

[Jeff250]

That's not tremendously different from what I'm suggesting -- intent to harm with no actual action = busted for intent. No intent to harm but harmful action occurs on accident = not busted at all, EXCEPT in the case that your lack of intent is accompanied by a criminally stupid level of negligence, in which case, you're busted for that negligence and the result of it.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. For example, I feel that people should not be further penalized for action that they did not intend, but, if they were negligent, then for the negligence that they did intend. But you seem to feel that there is reason to justify giving somebody who was negligent additional penalty if they, by misfortune, perform an action that they did not intend. Ultimately, choosing which view is the right view is just going to depend upon what we value as individuals, and there's no clear way to debate what should be valued and what shouldn't be.

[Will Robinson]

Jeff are you willing to agree that someone under the influence of drugs is potentially more dangerous to others due to their impaired state? More likely to \"accidently\" cause harm to others?

If you agree to that then why wouldn't you be willing to deliver additional punishment to someone who purposely put themselves in that impaired state and then did cause harm to others?

If I know manufacturing childrens halloween costumes out of highly flamable material could be dangerous but I do it anyway then should I only be liable for manufacturing a faulty product? Or should I also be punished for purposely increasing the chances that some kid might go up in flames?

If you get high and drive and \"accidently\" run someone over you really can't just be guilty of \"accidently\" running someone over, there is culpability for purposely impairing your own ability to operate the machinery in a safe manner. What is wrong in the punishment for your putting people at that extra degree of risk being focused on the very cause of your doing so? What is so special about drug use that you don't want the law to focus a penalty on that aspect of someones negligence when the whole purpose of singling the drug use out is to prevent those kind of \"accidents\". It has been proven that specifically focusing penalties on particular behavior will reduce those incidents. The war against drunk drivers in the '70's and the resulting reduction of DUI related deaths is proof that specifically, publically singling out the drunks was effective...why not do it with the druggies too?

Your position is to blend the incidents caused by drug-users into the larger pool of incidents caused by all the other negligent offenders, negating the preventative aspect of the penalty. Why? What is it about drug use that needs to be protected from the stigma of being singled out?
These laws would be a part of the new strategy of dealing with drug use since we are going to decriminalize drug use and seek other methods to deal with the problems that we all know are caused by people when they irresponsibly abuse drugs.

Is it too politically incorrect to expose these perps to being singled out for what they do?
Think of it like this, using drugs would be legal but using drugs and doing harm while high would be illegal. So if you use drugs and are guilty of negligent homicide you suffer the consequences of the homicide, the negligence and the drug use. Just like the use of a gun in a felony, the gun isn't an offense to posess unless it's used in a crime then you pay for the crime plus the gun posession.

[Lothar]

Jeff, I think you overvalue fairness and undervalue the corrective power of what is often called the correctional system. (And, yes, we CAN have a discussion about what people should value; IIRC we were in the middle of one when I had to take off for a week.)

The point of the additional penalty is that it acts as a corrective term -- crack down on negligence resulting in X, and people will reduce their amount of negligence, or at least find ways to modify their negligence in order to not result in as much X. (The result of negligence is not, for the most part, pure \"misfortune\"; like poker, it's a combination of luck and skill.)

[Kilarin]

i think you're a bit out of your element now.

WAY out. Freely admitted.

it's not premeditating the act that leads to the adverse impact, it's premeditating the adverse impact itself.

Thanks, that was a useful thing to learn, and your example was very good in explaining it.

I DID admit that the pre-meditated bit was very debatable, but I still think that if murder includes the definition:

murder requires either the intent to kill, or a state of mind called malice, or malice aforethought, which may involve an unintentional killing but with a willful disregard for life.

Then, doesn't operating heavy machinery while intoxicated qualify as a "willful disregard for life?"

It still seems to me that from a legal standpoint, an unimpaired legal driver who accidentally turns the wrong way on a one way road and ends up killing a bunch of people has committed manslaughter. They did not intend to hurt anyone and they did not have a good reason to believe they were going to hurt anyone. They exact amount of negligence involved will, of course, vary, but they could not be said to have been acting with a "willful disregard for life"

But a guy who gets drunk, and then gets behind the wheel and kills someone HAS acted with a "willful disregard for life". The term "accident" doesn't really apply in the same way anymore. And this has moved from manslaughter up to the next level. To murder.

[Jeff250]

What is wrong in the punishment for your putting people at that extra degree of risk being focused on the very cause of your doing so?

At the risk of sounding redundant, I think that it's only fair to penalize somebody for something that they voluntarily did. Now, if they voluntarily chose to become criminally negligent, then sure, they should be penalized for that. But everyone who chooses to become criminally negligent should be penalized, not just those who don't luck out.

The war against drunk drivers in the '70's and the resulting reduction of DUI related deaths is proof that specifically, publically singling out the drunks was effective...why not do it with the druggies too?

I'm not familiar with that episode, but if the war consisted in giving everybody stiff sentences for doing something criminally negligent, namely drinking while driving, then I'm in perfect support of that. However, if the war consisted in just singling out those drunk drivers that by poor luck got into a car accident and giving them very harsh penalties, then I'm not for that at all.

In other words, if you really think that getting high is always criminally negligent, then that should be a crime in and of itself. (I personally disagree and would say that there are ways to get high that aren't criminally negligent.) However, if you don't believe that getting high is always criminally negligent, then I especially don't see the fairness in tacking on a higher sentence for somebody who did a crime while high.

Certainly we all agree that deterrance isn't the sole purpose of the law. We can all imagine ways that the law could deter crime more effectively that would just be fracked up.

Jeff, I think you overvalue fairness and undervalue the corrective power of what is often called the correctional system.

I disagree--I believe that, for example, all drunk drivers, especially repeat offenders, deserve the same amount of correctional treatment, regardless of if they, by happenstance, hit somebody out on the road.

(And, yes, we CAN have a discussion about what people should value; IIRC we were in the middle of one when I had to take off for a week.)

I'm certainly not against the idea. I just don't think that it will be easy, if possible at all.

[Lothar]

if you really think that getting high is always criminally negligent, then that should be a crime in and of itself.

I don't think anybody said that.

Getting high and taking certain other actions (ex: operating heavy machinery) is criminally negligent. Such things should always come with a penalty (for certain types of highness, and certain specific actions, anyway), even if there's no additional crime committed -- same as drunk driving. If there is an additional crime committed, and the substance had any part in it, again, treat that like an extra layer of negligence. (If someone was already planning a murder and then they happen to do some drugs beforehand, I wouldn't count the drugs at all.)

[Jeff250]

Getting high and taking certain other actions (ex: operating heavy machinery) is criminally negligent. Such things should always come with a penalty (for certain types of highness, and certain specific actions, anyway), even if there's no additional crime committed -- same as drunk driving.

Certainly.

If there is an additional crime committed, and the substance had any part in it, again, treat that like an extra layer of negligence.

If they voluntarily do something criminally negligent and then they voluntarily commit a crime, penalize them for both.