Drunk Driver/Slap on Wrist!!

Drunk Driver Who Caused Fatal Wreck Ordered To Perform 300 Hours Of Community Service
- A 20-year-old drunk driver who killed a real estate agent, headed to the airport for her first Bahamas cruise last October, was sentenced in court Thursday. A judge ordered Ashley Williams of Wendell to perform 300 hours of community service by giving speeches at churches, civic organizations, and schools about the dangers of drinking and driving. Mari-Leigh Baker Inglis, 49, was killed after the SUV she was riding in on Highway 39 at Earpsboro Road was struck by Williams’ 1994 Saturn. The driver of the SUV, Hilary Lafayette Pearce, 58, and a passenger, Janie Pearce both from Zebulon, were treated and released at Wake Med. Williams received a 16 to 20 month suspended sentence for involuntary manslaughter. She was given a six month suspended sentence for the DWI charge. A judge also ordered her to pay $1,905 towards the victims funeral expenses. :evil:

 

:shock: :?

 

What would you suggest as a sentence?

 

That's why I'm not a judge...

 

It's hard to decide what direction to go on situations like this one.

 

i have absolutely zero tolerance for drunk driving.

there is no reason this person should ever be behind the wheel of a car again. and please don't start with "one bad decision shouldn't ruin her life"

at the very least she should suffer the inconvenience of having to walk, ride a bike, take a bus or a cab for the rest of her life for the tragedy of killing someone.

it's appalling that this killer wont be serving any time.

 

It just does not seem right to me. But then again thats the way I look at it. I think some jail time should have been given. I know if it was me I would not have got off that easy. 6 months with suspended sentence, I got longer than that with just speeding tickets. I got 8 months for a 70mph in a 55mph work zone and 2 more months for another ticket.

 

Next to speeding, this is the most common law that most people break. (Shamefully, I have to include myself in my younger years.) It's just that most people don't get caught, either by the law or by an accident. Sadly, our society punishes after the accident.

How many of us on this forum have driven drunk? That's probably a subject for a poll. (Although I can envision that thread degenerating into postings along the line of... "I wasn't drunk! I only had x drinks."

 

I guess we know that ksmahgrts has never had a drink and then driven.

 

never. i have never once put alcohol to my lips and gotten behind the wheel.

i've had too much death and tragedy in my life as a result of foolish, drunk morons.

 

^^^^with out lics. Not Jail Time!!

 

huh?

chuck the moron's ass in jail too.

 

Well all I have to say is I know when I got 2 tickets within a year, the DMV took my license's for 10 months. Speeding is not far down the list from DWI or DUI but come on now!!! I know someone who got pulled and had to blow and blew a .04 (they were over 21) and got a ticket they were looking at a class 3 mister meaner (?) and they let them drive off. So what is to learn here. I can drive and drink= jail time or Drive and Drink= nothing.

 

Well, I don't think the poll will really reflect whether people have driven drunk or not. Having a glass of wine with dinner, and then driving home, doesn't mean you've driven drunk.

I am certainly not advocating driving drunk, but let's be realistic here.

 

Well let's see, she was drunk, she was driving, and as a result someone died -- put her ass in jail. I think a year behind bars would have done her some good -- and it might have done some good to deter other from doing it in the future. Hell, this sentence isn't even a good slap on the wrist, if nobody had died perhaps, but someone died in this case and requires harsher punishment.

 

Not even that she is 20?? She's not supposed to be drinking in the first place!!! :evil:
I say throw her under the jail

 

so, i'm already in a really fired up mood this morning... and this poll has done absolutely nothing to help.

it's sickening.

and tawii - i missed your post the first time around - we apparently were posting at the same time. what are you insinuating? and what are your thoughts on the topic, since you seem to be very much on the fence.

 

Yes, this does skew the poll. I will have one drink with dinner and drive home but no more. If I do by chance drink more than my limit of one my wife drives. She has driven twice in the past 30 years and both times the drinks I had first were much stronger than expected so I did not "push my luck".

The girl should have at least had to go to jail on the weekends or something .....

 

I've gotten arrested for a DWI. Not here. Where the laws were much tougher. I didn't sit in a drunk tank for a few hours and go home. I got the whole orange jumpsuit, strip search, no shoestrings deal. And they put me in a hole with two other guys while I slept on a thin mattress on a concrete floor with no blanket. I spent a night there screaming through the cell door that I needed a blanket, listening to the women across the jail screaming like banshees and watching a grown, married man cry his ass off.

I was drunk at the time I was driving. No doubt about it. I/my parents spent 5,000 plus dollars with fees counseling lawyers fees. I did community service(which I was already doing on my own). The counseling was worthless. I didn't lose my licensce because the [DMV] ruled that the roadblock was an unlawful search and seizure. (Apparently only white guys w/ Puerto Ricans w/ blonde hair were getting stopped that day. Families in minivans and cute blonde chics were waved on through.)

I don't really know how to feel about it. I've done lots of crazy stuff that almost got me or other people killed. The most dangerous thing I've done behind the wheel is falling asleep at the wheel. Done it numerous times in college. I'm sure there's a lot more people out there, minivan-driving moms included, that are much more deadlier behind the wheel than a person with a 0.09 BAC, problem is their mental deficiency can't be measured after the crash dead or alive.

Ironically, Eddie Sutton the coach of the Oklahoma State basketball team, the college where my mother teaches for and is both my parents' alma mater, got charged with a DUI last week. Same town as my DUI. Doesn't matter if you're washing dishes with a B.S. for the basketball fans or head of the basketball team......

 

I agree with Grits. My younger brother was hit by a Hit-N-Run Drunk Driver when he was 8. He was in a coma for 3 weeks. It changed his quality of life, the dynamics of the family, everything.

After the lawyers ate up everything, he got a measly 20 grand in a trust account... Not even enough for a college education, not enough for a lovely trache scar, one side of his body being weaker than the other, breathing problems... :evil: