Are Drunk Drivers Who Kill Murderers?

Are drunk drivers who inadvertantly kill guilty of murder? To even ask this question smacks on the border of naievete, as far as I'm concerned. The sad thing is Australian law more often than not say 'No'. According to Australian law if the intent is not there, then the driver is not guilty of murder. And since drunkedness impairs your ability to think properly, the deduction is that there was no intent, hence a drunk driver will rarely be found to be guilty of murder. The law is full of 'loop holes' and 'technicalities' like this which let people get away with murder. Not long ago, I wrote about a thug who head butted a police officer from behind which left him paralysed through half of his body and got away with it. 'Not Guilty' was the returned verdict. It's full story here:http://damien-crankyramblings.blogspot.com/2009/03/violence-against-our-police-force.html

One case here in Perth involved a 24 year old hoon drunk driver by the name of Benjamin Butler who was 3 times over the legal alcohol limit, when he decided to drive his high powered V8 Holden Monaro down a quiet suburban road, over taking two cars, clipped one of them mounted a curb, became airborne and landed in a front yard abruptly killing an 11 month old baby girl named Grace. Baby Grace was thrown several feet and eventually found under some rubble, she didn't stand a chance. That fateful moment changed the course of this young family's lives forever. That was not the worst of their nightmares. The worst was that the killer received a mere 22 month jail sentence for his heineous crime, a typical sentence for this type of crime in Australia, while the family got a life sentence. As the pain was too much to bear, the family have sold their home and are currently living in a caravan in a friend's yard. The judge described it as an 'inevitable accident' which irony is astonishing. If it's inevitable, then how could it be an accident?

In Australia the truth in sentencing laws automatically reduces your sentence by a third if you plead guilty. This is what Benjamin Butler did to reduce his sentence. To me it was a get out of jail card for him as he was caught red handed. This just shows a flawed system. Any defence lawyer can go to court and say his client is 'deeply remorseful' and that he is a 'good bloke' and sadly many a court buy into this garbage. Why do we even listen when people say it was a bad mistake?

Australians are asking why can't Australia be more like America when it comes to cracking down hard on crime. America used to be a dangerous place but with their tough stance on crime has improved significantly over the years and violent criminals once caught do not see the light of day for many years. One tough prosecutor in America recently secured a murder conviction on a similar case to that of Benjamin Butler with the drunk driver getting a 18 year sentence. Now that's what many people in Australia want to see happen here.

There can never be a question of a person's intent when he gets behind the wheel while intoxicated. As far as I'm concerned, the intent is there if you decide to get behind the wheel while knowing you are drunk. A car is a deadly weapon and if you use a deadly weapon when you know you are drunk, yeah then it is murder. There is little doubt that the choice is there not to get behind the wheel, and if you do get behind the wheel, you have chosen to put other peoples lives at risk including the possibility of causing death. This constitutes intent any which way you look at it. I am guilty as anyone after a few drinks and thinking I'm ok to drive home not wanting the hassle to take a cab. However, if we are to be serious with this, there should be little tolerance for drunk drivers and the laws will have to be amended to protect the public from the drunken hoons who have a depraved indiferrence to human life. We must send a clear and strong message to our law makers that this is not acceptable and we should not live in fear that one day the lives most precious to us will be violently taken away because we failed to act when we had the chance. We must as a society appropriately criminalise drunk driving.