DUI Offenders

MADD As Hell

"These guys are difficult.  I don't know how you justify locking them up for life just on the chance that they might end up drinking and driving and killing someone."
Michael Weinrath, professor of criminal justice, University of Winnipeg

Professor Weinrath specializes in drunk driving; obviously not by indulging himself, but by observing the attitudes of those who do. He is offended by Mothers Against Drunk Driving calling for increased incarceration penalties and dangerous offender labels to be applied to repeat offenders. As far as Professor Weinrath is concerned, this isn't the correct way to go; it would achieve nothing meaningful for society.

Does he have any idea of how the law might respond to the critical issue of repeat offenders? Well, while he considers the most egregious of offenders' repeating their dangerous anti-social behaviours, endangering others on the roads and highways of the nation and sometimes causing dreadful injury and death -- to themselves and others -- to be "horrendous", he claims the punishment needs to fit the crime.

Without a doubt people who have been impacted by the after-effects of a drunk-driving accident, or know someone who has been injured, or have a family member who died as a result of such a collision would feel that the stricter the punishment the more fitting it is to the crime. His research shows, however, that most people convicted of drunk driving don't go on to re-offend.

Which doesn't quite prove any point. Those who do not re-offend are given a clean bill of health, so to speak. But they don't represent those who not only go on to re-offend, but do it again and again and again. While Professor Weinrath's studies indicate to his satisfaction that repeat "incorrigible" offenders are rare, they do exist.

Take, for example, a man living in Saskatchewan who has been convicted of driving while impaired for the 19th time. "It's by luck he hasn't killed somebody", stated Andrew Murie, chief executive of MADD Canada. Kenneth Obey, convicted on his 19th charge of driving while impaired clearly represents an embarrassment to the system.

"It's disgusting that the system handles people like him in this fashion", observed Mr. Murie. In August of 2012 police found Mr. Obie's blood-alcohol level to be 2-1/2 times the legal driving limit. His decision to drive on that occasion resulted from the fact that his companion was drunk as well, and Mr. Obie felt it would be preferable for him to drive. Astonishing reasoning.

He claims to have been abused sexually while attending a residential school when he was fourteen years of age. This is considered to be a kind of exonerating factor in his current behaviour. Mr. Murie feels that the man should have been given dangerous offender status. As well as a more prolonged prison penalty. "I think the Crown failed. Imagine the outrage if he killed someone?"

Another example of the 'rare', but intolerably horrible outcomes of drunk driving is the case of Roger Walsh in October 2008, in Quebec, who struck a woman with his minivan. Anee Khudaverdian was in her wheelchair on her 47th birthday with her dog, ambling along when she was struck. Mr. Walsh continued to drive for another ten kilometres until he drove his vehicle into a ditch. And that was his 19th driving conviction.

He received a life sentence. But had he been designated a dangerous offender, a death might have been averted. Terry Naugie of Truro, Nova Scotia was found guilty of impaired driving in 2010, for the 23rd time, after side-swiping an SUV on a highway off-ramp. He received an 8-1/2-year prison sentence. He was named by the prosecutor the "worst known offender" of impaired driving at the time in Nova Scotia.

And in Ontario, the trial of Pembroke dentist Christie Natsis is still ongoing two years after she crashed her SUV into Bryan Casey's truck, killing him, while she was driving under the influence of alcohol.  Her high-priced legal team has successfully strung out her trial, while they manoeuvred in court to deny the credibility of every witness brought by the prosecution in her trial.

Dr. Christy Natsis walks out of the Ottawa Court house during a break in her drunk driving trial Monday, Dec. 3, 2012. Darren Brown/Ottawa Sun/QMI Agency