Saturday, October 14, 2006

The WI. Legislature: Criminally Negligent About DUI

Thanks for the reminder, Patrick.

When the "sentence" was announced last night, I was incredulous--but I'll assume that the judge actually read the statutes before doing his best:

A West Bend man was sentenced Friday to 4 1/2 years in state prison for his 12th drunken driving offense by a judge who was the prosecutor in the man’s first brush with the law as a juvenile in 1979.

We are told that four and one-half years is the MAXIMUM sentence allowed for 12 DUI convictions.

This is not the Judge's fault.

This is squarely on the Legislature, which is clearly derelict in its duty to provide adequate jail-time for DUI's.

Not only derelict. It's damn near criminal dereliction of duty.

But we all know why: there are lots of members of the Legislature who are DUI--whether caught, or convicted, is another story.

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