billwatson58

Wed. Journal article

These scum had better get some jail time for this

hairnet

similar incident happened here a couple weeks ago but no one caught.

JoeyBike

Those little darlings will make cute brides in jail.

genec

Those two are off to a great start in life...

Cyclaholic

Must be the cyclist's fault for swerving without warning out in front of the wonderful young man who is pure as the driven snow but has been influenced by the wrong crowd and is therefore totally blameless.... and was the scofflaw cyclist even wearing a helmet? didn't a whole bunch of other cyclists run red lights earlier that day?, didn't the cyclist have it coming for being silly enough to play with a child's toy on public roads that are for responsible adults (like the fine young man behind the wheel) to do very important things like going to work?


...I'm too young to be this cynical.

gcottay

The rider, who was treated and released, was able to get a partial license plate. Good work, I'd say.

Village Idiot

Those two look like real winners. And a BAC of .158 at 6:30AM? WTF?

sauerwald

One thing which bugs me in reports like this is when they refer to the BAC as being in excess of the legal limit. For teens, the legal limit is 0. Any BAC is above the legal limit.

In most states, felons are not allowed to own a firearm for life. Since the weapon of choice for these two was a motor vehicle, they should be banned from owning or using a motor vehicle for life.

DX Rider

There is a case near where I live that I think is worse.

Three years ago, a 17 year old girl ran down a pedestrian while drinking and driving. She also drove off and left the guy to die. The prosecution couldn't prove that she caused the pedestrians death. The defense argued that the victim was laying in the road when he was run over, instead of her hitting him, knocking him down, and than running him over. Since there weren't any eye witnesses and there wasn't any visible damage to her car, the prosecuter couldn't prove different. Even though the victim frequently walked on that road at night and had never layed in the road before.

So, they were only able to convict her for leaving the scene of an accident after causing bodily harm. She was sentenced to three years probation and as a condition of her probation she was ordered to stay away from alcohol. If she violated these terms, she would have to serve six months in jail.

Last week she was found passed out behind the wheel of car, while it was sitting in the middle of a travel lane. She went to court yesterday.

Do you think they sent her to jail?

Of course not, the judge sent the poor wittle baby to rehab instead. So she has literally gotten away with murder.

The laws regarding drunk driving are nowhere near strict enough. If they were strict enough, you wouldn't see so many mutliple offenders. The lesson isn't getting learned.


https://www.thesunchronicle.com/artic...ws/5067769.txt

DX Rider

Yes, but they still need to be over the legal limit to be charged with a DUI, otherwise it's just underage drinking, a lesser charge. If they're over the limit, they can be charged with both.

The legal limit in regards to what legally constitutes drinking and driving still applies to underage drinkers. Would you rather have them NOT be charged with a DUI, because they're underage?

Sailorman13

How so? The two thugs in OP maliciously stalked and hit their prey. This girl's crime didn't come close to that unless you make a lot of groundless assumptions about it. Assumptions that are not supported by anything in that article.

You left out a few things here. From the article: "Although there were no witnesses to the accident, evidence indicated that Cardin might have been laying in the dark road after he left the Anvil Pub and began walking home".

Now, that's not an excuse for what she did. You can't go around running over drunks lying in the road, but it's a far cry from what the OP guys did. And it's actually possible. Maybe someone else hit him first, maybe he just passed out. Fortunately, the prosecutor has the burden, not the defendant. That's our system. If the prosecutor thought there was any evidence, he would not have amended the charges.

BTW, there is nothing in the article saying she was drunk when she ran Cardin over. Her alcohol treatment is a result of this last non-accident DUI. Her first, as far as I can tell. At least one of the OP guys was drunk off his arse.


I guess that's all they had evidence of. You can't just convict someone on assumptions and maybees. It's amazing they caught and were able to charge anyone at all.

A clear violation. But she went to court for the VOP, not being drunk behind the wheel. She will also have additional penalties when that violation goes to trial.

It may end up being worse than jail. At any rate it won't be a cakewalk and it's more productive than doing 6 mos. in a worthless prison just so someone can feel avenged. From the article:

""Serenity House offers a solution that may be both punitive and rehabilitative in nature," Johnson-Smith [the judge] said."

"The treatment program lasts six to nine months, but can be extended to one year."

"Finnegan's probation officer told the judge that the program at Serenity House offered a longer term of treatment than Finnegan would receive if she was sent to the state's prison for women in Framingham."

"She was also ordered to continue to wear the bracelet after her release from the facility until the end of her probation in June 2010."


You have no valid reason to know she was guilty of murder. If you do, perhaps you can bring it to the attention of the DA. Since she was never charged with murder, it wouldn't be a double jeopardy issue and I'm sure they'll charge her with it.

No, if it wasn't so hard for non-celebrities to get decent rehab without first committing a crime, you wouldn't see so many multiple offenders. Long prison sentences don't deter alcoholics. You would not want to pay to incarcerate people for terms long enough to be a genuine deterrent. The alternative would be capital punishment for a 1st DUI conviction. Call me a bleeding heart, but I'm not sure I want to go there. Long prison terms need to be reserved for the truly incorrigible and/or malicious criminals like the OP guys. For everyone else with alcohol and drug problems, short jail sentences with looooong probations, restitution and serious rehab are far more useful to prevent multiple offenses. As for the avenger in us all, rest assured that a serious non-celeb rehab facility is no more pleasant than any jail or prison they would reasonably assigned to. Getting high in prison is easier than in a lockdown rehab facility.

IMO, It is an admission of a failure of the system when we have to resort to long, costly and worthless prison sentences for non-malicious offenders with drug/alcohol problems just to protect society. No one gets out of prison better than when they went in. Especially teenaged girls.

Go ahead. Flamesuit (with special bleeding heart liberal brickbat resistant pads) on.

wnl256

In Georgia the legal limit for DUI is lower for drivers under 21 (.02 instead of .08).

dynodonn 

Here in Caliland, the underage limit is .01 percent.

Glenn1234

The DUI issue has been explained and is true since you would have to distinguish between legal drinking and other consumption somehow.

And the other consumption part is what I wanted to address specifically. There are other things that are perfectly legal for teens to ingest that do have alcohol in them. Cold medicine, for example. To compare, vodka has about 35-50% by volume, and beer has anywhere from 4-12%. You would show a BAC upon testing if you were to consume cold medicine. So how would you distinguish it?

Village Idiot

Then after drinking, they shouldn't drive according to 0 tolerance laws. Most states have laws where people under 21 that are over 0 BAC that are pulled over get charged with a DUI right there. I don't think they specify that it matters what you're drinking.

Don't things like nyquil have warnings about operating vehicles or machinery on them any ways?