December 17, 2018 • 37 mins
On this episode of Tony Talks Charles County Crime, State's Attorney Tony Covington discusses the deadly choice that kills over 10,000 people in America per year: drunk driving.
In part one of a two-episode discussion, State's Attorney Covington breaks down the problem of drunk driving and its causes, while also sharing a gripping true-life narrative of how drunk driving affected one family forever.
01:38 - Victim Impact Account
06:09 - Problem by the Numbers
08:55 - The Cause: Public Attitude
09:57 - Alcohol is NOT the Cause of Drunk Driving
14:06 - Good Guy or Criminal?
17:59 - Drunk Driving and the Criminal Justice System
27:23 - Enforcement of the Laws
28:47 - Relying on Drunk Drivers
34:04 - Dispelling Myths
35:41 - Conclusion
Please stay tuned for Part 2 of Tony Talks Charles County Crime: Drunk Driving.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tony Covington (00:15):
Welcome, Tony Covington, your State's Attorney
here.
If you heard my first podcast,you know that I try to answer a
couple of questions from thepublic at the end of each
episode.
Well, this episode and the nextare actually going to be me
answering two questions thathave been posed to me many times
before.
Many people want to know why wehave so many drunk drivers out
there and what we can do to stopit.
(00:37):
Since neither of those questionscan be answered in a couple of
minutes.
I decided to devote an entireepisode to each question.
This episode, part one, will beabout the problem with drunk
driving and its causes.
It sounds straightforward, but Ithink you'll be surprised at
some of the things I reveal andafter outlining the problem in
part one, part two, we'll dealwith the solutions to what
(00:57):
really is an epidemic.
And by the way, if you thinkthis epidemic won't impact you,
the odds say you're mistaken.
Two out of three people will beimpacted by a drunk driving
crash in their lifetime, sounfortunately you probably will
be forced to deal with theaftermath of a drunk driving
collision at some point in yourlife, so please keep listening.
(01:18):
Since the holiday season is uponus, which means that more than
the usual number of drunkdrivers are going to be out
there on our roadways.
I figured now would be a goodtime to talk about drunk driving
and the mayhem that results fromit, but before I get into the
causes and solutions to thishuge problem, let me give you a
true life account of the impactdrunk driving has on families
and our communities.
(01:39):
Seven year old boy is sitting athome along with his grandmother,
mother, four brothers andsisters.
He and the other kids aresubdued because they can feel
their mother's anxiety over thefact that her husband, the kid's
father, is very, very latecoming home.
Even more worrisome to them isthat he's unreachable and no one
(02:00):
knows where he is.
The boy can't wait for hisfather, his everyday real life
hero, to come strolling throughthe door, grab him and his two
brothers and start the roughhousing that occurs every night
Dad comes home.
Despite this anticipation ofthat moment, he like everyone
else in the house was nervous.
All of them jump when they hearthe unexpected shrill sound of
(02:21):
the phone ring.
The boy watches as his motherpicks up the phone.
After a few moments of talkingwith whoever's on the other end
of the line, the boy sees hismother, seemingly in slow
motion, turn towards him and hissiblings with the look of pure
terror on her face.
It's a look that will haunt theboy for the rest of his life,
(02:42):
but the look on her face can'tcompare to the sound that
explodes from her mouth.
A scream, a primal scream thatsounds as if someone has plunged
their hand into her chest andripped out her very soul.
It is a sound made.
When someone realizes thateverything they have worked for,
everything they have dreamed oftheir entire life, that which
(03:02):
they love the most is in onefell swoop destroyed right
before their very eyes.
Throughout the boy's life thatunforgettable sound is with him
when he wakes up in a coldsweat, because of the all too
often nightmares about the awfulnight and the days that followed
his father's death.
Now seven years old, the boy wastoo young to understand what
(03:24):
daddy is dead truly meant.
For years, he woke up everymorning thinking his father
would be at the breakfast table,reading the paper, drinking his
coffee.
Every time the front dooropened, he believed dad was
going to come strutting intohouse, surprising everyone just
like he did when he had returnedfrom Vietnam.
But once the boy got old enoughand dad never again showed up at
(03:46):
the breakfast table and neveragain walked through their front
door, he finally understood thatdeath truly meant never again.
Yet, even understanding that hewould never see his father
again, throughout his entirelife this boy, turned teenager,
turned young man, turnedmiddle-aged man, still dreams of
(04:08):
seeing his father walk into hishouse.
And in his dream he watches ashis father gets to see the
grandchildren he never knew andmeet the daughter-in-law he
never had a chance to meet.
And he watched as his father,with tears running down his
face, marvels at everything,that his middle child has
achieved over a lifetime.
(04:28):
In this dream the son asks hisfather why he's crying.
The father says, son, I'm cryingfor two reasons, partly because
I'm so proud of the man you havebecome and all that you have
done in your life.
Mostly I'm crying because Iwasn't able to be there with
you.
And make no mistake, the boywasn't the only one devastated
by this tragedy.
(04:49):
His entire family would struggleafter his dad was killed, the
father's senseless, totallypreventable death impacted every
member of the family for alltheir days.
They found that the loss of hisfather became bearable, not
because the wound of a violentsenseless death ever healed.
The wound never healed.
No, the lost become bearableonly because there was no
(05:11):
alternative.
Life went on and they had nochoice but to keep moving
forward.
Keep living life.
Throughout their lives, however,no matter how high they rose, no
how great a day it may be, theirdays are always a little less
bright because that little boy'sfather was taken away and just
couldn't be there for them.
And all this because some drunkdriver crossed the double yellow
(05:34):
line on an Alabama road and at70 miles an hour slammed head on
into his father's Volvo.
In an instant, the boy's fatherwas taken from this earth, from
his mother, from his wife, fromhis children, never to be seen
or heard again.
Never again.
(05:57):
Trust me, I know this is not apleasant subject, especially
during this cheer-filled holidayseason, but it is incredibly
important.
Why?
Well, to answer that let me giveyou some idea of the scope of
the problem.
In America, the land of the freeand the home of the brave, every
single year, more than 10,000people are killed by drunk
drivers.
(06:17):
Drunk driving deaths account forfully a third of all traffic
fatalities in the country.
That's one out of three trafficfatalities.
Think about that.
More than 10,000 living,breathing souls gone forever.
Ten thousand deaths a year meansthat every single hour of every
single day at least one personin America is killed by a drunk
(06:38):
driver.
It means every single hour,every single day at least one
family like that seven-year-oldboy's family you just heard
about is devastated and scarredfor life by a drunk driver.
Think on this for a second, howmany people are killed while
you're watching a movie orduring your commute to and from
work each day?
One, two, three, four?
(06:59):
You know when you think of itthat way, it's kind of
unbelievable, isn't it?
And those numbers relate just tothe deaths from drunk driving.
Almost 300,000 people a year areinjured in drunk driving
crashes.
Every two minutes, yeah, I saidtwo- as in uno, dos, two- every
two minutes someone is injuredin a drunk driving crash.
So every hour at least 30 peoplepotentially have their lives
(07:22):
forever changed.
They may be alive, but maimed orcrippled, and I'm not even going
to get into the mental andemotional toll drunk driving
crashes take on people.
It's basically impossible toquantify.
They have, however, been able toquantify the financial costs of
drunk driving.
The total is 132 billion.
That's right with a b, billiondollars a year.
(07:43):
That's more than three timesMaryland's entire state budget.
Now, those are nationalstatistics, so you asked me
about closer to home.
Well, here in the great state ofMaryland, we do our share to
contribute to the distressingdeath toll.
In Maryland, over the past 10years, someone has been killed
by a drunk driver about everyother day.
(08:04):
That's right.
Family doesn't grieve today inMaryland, unfortunately you can
safely bet that one will begrieving tomorrow.
All this death and mayhem simplybecause someone who had too much
to drink didn't have the commondecency to not get behind the
wheel and drive a 4,000 poundweapon that we normally call a
car.
And to me, the worst of it allis that this horror that we deal
(08:26):
with basically every singleminute of every day is
preventable.
And since it is preventable,given this kind of yearly
casualty that we have, you wouldthink that collectively, we'd be
doing everything in our power tostop drunk driving and save
lives.
Well, sadly, I'm here to tellyou that we aren't and because
(08:48):
we aren't, I need to talk to youabout how we got to this awful
place where so many lives areneedlessly lost.
And actually it's not hard tofigure out how we got here.
First, we as a society justdon't care enough about the
problem.
Secondly, although we certainlyhave the means to eliminate
drunk driving, we simply don'tdo enough to fix the problem.
I know these are prettygeneralized reasons but bear
(09:10):
with me and I'll give you thedetails that lead directly to my
conclusions here.
Let's start with the fact thatwe don't care enough about this
problem.
It is clear as day to me that asa society we don't consider or
treat drunk driving as a seriouscrime that it really is.
Sure, we go through the motionsof combating the menace and
don't get me wrong, includingthe police and prosecutors are
certainly many dedicated,motivated, good people and
(09:33):
organizations out there fightingthe good fight.
MADD stands for Mothers AgainstDrunk Driving.
That's just one of the wellknown examples, but overall, as
a society, our behavior and howwe allocate society's resources
reveals that we just don't careenough.
This is especially true of drunkdriving that leads to death.
There are several interlockingreasons that I think demonstrate
(09:54):
that this is true.
Let me get into them.
First, let's talk about how weview the root cause of drunk
driving.
We tend to see drunk drivers assalt of the earth people that
just made a mistake.
Folks say, well, they were justdoing what so many of us do,
enjoying some alcohol and theymade the mistake of letting
alcohol get the best of them.
A mistake that any of us couldmake, they say.
(10:17):
Our society, and veryimportantly, our courts tend to
think and act like alcoholitself is the problem.
What I mean by that, well let metell you what typically happens
in court when someone is chargedwith drunk driving and I think
you'll get where I'm comingfrom.
When someone gets charged withdrunk driving, the first thing
that an attorney will do is tohave their client go get an
(10:37):
evaluation to see if they havean alcohol problem and if
necessary, get treatment.
Believe it or not, there is awhole industry set up for this.
Anyway.
Then at the sentencing of theguilty drunk driver, the first
thing out of the attorney'smouth is, Judge, my client has
been evaluated and he doesn'thave an alcohol problem.
He's learned his lesson.
Please don't do anything to him,and the judge says, well, I'm
(10:59):
glad you don't have an alcoholproblem, sir.
Go forth from this courtroom andsin no more.
Now, even if the drunk driverdoes have an alcohol problem,
the judge will order him to dosome Alcoholics Anonymous
classes or some other treatmentplan or the court just may
accept the treatment theclient's attorney already had
them get before he then says, goforth from this courtroom and
(11:20):
sin no more.
Now that scenario plays outthousands of times a week in our
nation's courtrooms.
The attorney's focus and thecourts focus are on whether the
drunk driver has an alcoholproblem, so the court just wants
the defendant to get help forthat issue and the theory goes
all will be fine.
Unfortunately, that's just flatout wrong.
(11:41):
Alcohol doesn't cause drunkdriving.
Sure, the crime of driving underthe influence of alcohol
requires the alcohol.
Yeah.
You can't have one without theother.
I get that.
Still, I say again, alcohol doesnot cause the crime.
Hear me out for a minute furtherso I can drive my point home.
No pun intended there.
Tell me if you have ever heard atrue life version of the
(12:03):
following scenario.
Drunk driver is in court forsentencing.
He tells the court that thereason he was driving drunk that
night was because he and hisbuddies were at the bar watching
the game.
He had some beers during thegame.
When their team won, they didsome shots to celebrate.
Now as he was drinking thesebeers, he tells the Judge he
(12:24):
felt this strange compulsion togo drive his car and with each
successive shot that he gulpeddown the compulsion to drive
just got stronger, stronger andstronger.
Finally, he gave in and justleft his boys at the bar and got
in his car and just starteddriving.
Then he wrecked the car and wasarrested.
Judge, he said, I just couldn'thelp myself.
(12:45):
Kinda like Jamie Foxx saying,you know, blame it on the
alcohol.
Am I right?
You never heard anyone say that,have you?
Neither have I.
And that's because it doesn'thappen.
If alcohol caused drunk driving,I would have heard that
ridiculous excuse thousands oftimes over my career, but I've
never heard it because alcoholain't the cause of drunk
driving.
(13:06):
It's clearly part of the crime,but not itself the cause.
And as a prosecutor, I've triedto make judges understand that
the alcohol or an alcoholproblem isn't the culprit.
Let me tell you, I can't counthow many times I told judges at
sentencing that I could not careless how much Johnny boy loves
alcohol.
(13:26):
He can drink himself silly allday and night as far as I'm
concerned.
He's grown, can do what he wantsin that regard.
I couldn't stop him if I wantedto.
As a prosecutor, what I careabout is that he doesn't get
behind the wheel of a car afterdrinking and I told those judges
to give a sentence that willmake Johnny think two, three,
four times before he drivesdrunk again.
(13:46):
I focused on the decision todrive, not the drinking.
And I do so because when youboil it down, it is a selfish,
reckless, depraved heartdecision to get behind the wheel
after drinking that truly causesdrunk driving and all the
carnage that comes with it.
It is not the alcohol itself.
(14:06):
Now, because we erroneouslyfocus on the alcohol as opposed
to the decision to drive, we seedrunk drivers as merely a good
guy that made a mistake.
We tend to believe that it's nothis fault.
He's not responsible for hisconduct, so we should not treat
him too harshly.
Contrary, we've used, say ashoplifter, as a criminal.
She took someone else'sproperty.
She committed a crime.
(14:28):
We ought to lock her thievingbehind up.
Well, truth be told, the drunkdriver committed a crime too.
A real honest to God crime.
In fact, a real dangerous crime.
Remember, drunk drivers killsomebody every hour of every
day.
Do shoplifters?
Uh, no.
No, they don't.
Now, despite the very routinedeadly consequences of drunk
driving, we give drunk driversall kinds of excuses to excuse
(14:52):
their criminal behavior.
He's a good guy.
He just made a poor decision.
He was depressed because he justgot fired or he was celebrating.
He just got a promotion or hejust got engaged or he got a
baby.
He bought a new lawn mower.
Anything.
We say anything to give thedrunk driver a break and to not
call him a criminal or treat himlike other criminals.
(15:15):
Shoot.
We do it so much that drunkdrivers themselves, even those
that kill people don't accept orrecognize that their conduct is
criminal.
Here's a true story example ofthat: We had a defendant that
was driving drunk and she failedto yield the right of way to a
motorcyclist.
The cyclist was killed.
She was convicted, sentenced,served her sentence, and had
(15:35):
been placed on probation.
She violated the conditions ofher probation, which meant that
she was subject to whatever partof her sentence that had been
suspended.
Now, as we were going throughthe process of asking the judge
to violate her probation andreincarcerate her, she
complained bitterly that we, theprosecutors and judge, were
(15:56):
treating her like quote, acriminal, unquote.
Yeah.
Those are her words.
And they came out of her mouth.
She was very upset that we hadthe nerve to hold her
accountable like we would anyother criminal and just so you
know, we did hold heraccountable and she did go back
to jail, but that's not mypoint.
My point is that she and so manylike her can't wrap their mind
(16:18):
around why they're being treatedlike a criminal and they can't
because collectively our societydoesn't really view them as
criminals either.
So why should they seethemselves as anything other
than a good guy or gal that madea simple innocent mistake that
had grave consequences?
Well, I hate to break the newsto drunk drivers and everyone
else, but the somber truth isthat when a drunk driver decides
(16:41):
to get behind the wheel of thatcar and start the engine, he has
the exact same mentality thatevery other criminal has when
they commit their crimes.
At that moment, they don't careabout anybody else's life or
well-being.
All they want is what they wantin that moment.
The laws can be damned, they aregoing to do whatever they dag on
please, and on top of that, likeevery criminal defendant I've
(17:01):
ever dealt with, they firmlybelieve, I mean firmly believe
they aren't going to get caught.
That's the mindset of everydrunk driver, including the
drunk driver that killed thatseven year old boy's father, and
it's the same mindset of everymurderer, rapist, robber,
burglar, child molester, thiefwhen they commit their crimes.
(17:22):
The mindsets are exactly thesame.
So this drunk driving isn't areal crime attitude, it
manifests itself in thedecision-making process of drunk
drivers when they choose betweendriving or giving up their keys.
Can't you just hear them sayingto themselves, yeah, I'm going
to go ahead and drive home.
It's not like I'm committing areal crime or anything.
On a macro level, the attitudethat DUIs aren't a big deal also
(17:45):
manifests itself and how we as asociety cope with it, how
serious we take it.
Why would we take anythingseriously that we don't believe
is a real crime or problem?
We wouldn't and we don't.
And that's a problem.
And guess what?
Even our criminal justicesystem, the very system we look
to for control of this problemreflects this attitude and even
(18:09):
reinforces the thought thatdrunk driving isn't really a
serious crime.
Before I tackle this topic, letme say right off the bat that I
believe the criminal justicesystem reflects how we, the
people, feel about crime.
So to deal with this, I'm nottrying to say that the system is
out of touch with what oursociety wants.
I'm not bashing police or judgesor anybody.
Quite frankly, in my view, mostcitizens are right in step with
(18:30):
how the system deals with drunkdrivers, which is part of my
point as being part of theproblem.
Now, our courts signals to thepublic that drunk driving isn't
a big deal by failing to imposesentences that would effectively
deter changed behavior of drunkdrivers.
I know that we hear and see inthe media strident language; it
makes us believe drunk driversreally suffer when they get
(18:52):
caught and go to court.
Well, I wish that was the case,but I gotta be honest, it's not.
At the risk of being accused ofencouraging somebody to go and
drive drunk, I'm going to keepit real and tell you what
actually happens with drunkdrivers in court.
Obviously all judges aredifferent.
So what I'm about to lay out foryou is as general as general can
get.
(19:12):
Nevertheless, it's accurate andI think you'll conclude that
impactful consequences for drunkdrivers are sorely missing in
Maryland courts.
The penalties, not the laws onthe books, but the real
penalties.
The courts impose day in and dayout.
Penalties for drunk driving aretoo low and weak to make a real
difference.
Now at this point, I'm onlytalking about your average run
(19:33):
of the mill DUI.
No death or serious injuryinvolved.
I'll get to the ongoing travestyof how courts deal with the
cases where a drunk driveractually killed someone in a
bit.
Now the statutory maximumsentence for a run of the mill
driving under the influence caseis one year in jail.
Despite that maximum penalty,it's been my experience that in
just about every courtroom inMaryland, a first time DUI
(19:55):
offender isn't going to serve aday in jail.
More than that, when it's allsaid and done, that first time
offender won't even have aconviction for the DUI on his
record.
He will almost always receivewhat is called probation before
judgment, PBJ for short.
A PBJ is a mechanism in Marylandthat allows somebody to be
sentenced for a crime and that'sany crime, not just DUIs, but
(20:17):
not having an actual convictionrecorded on their criminal or
traffic record.
Now in the MVA drunk drivingworld that's very valuable to a
defendant because they don't getthe points on their record that
would automatically suspendtheir license.
And to be fair, some courtsrequire the defendant to earn
that PBJ.
The judge will give somebody theoption of going to jail for a
(20:37):
couple of days or paying a fineor doing community service in
exchange for the PBJ, but in myopinion, there's absolutely no
behavior changing sentencing offirst time offenders in
Maryland.
A couple of days in jail ain'tchanging anybody's behavior and
since two thirds of all drunkdriving arrests are first time
offenders, most convicted drunkdrivers merely get the
(20:58):
proverbial slap on the wrist.
But since we don't see drunkdriving as a real crime or a
serious crime, what else wouldwe expect from the courts?
And let me throw a stat outthere, and this is kind of
random, but it blew my mind thefirst time I heard it.
According to the self reportingsurveys and studies that were
done, researchers have concludedthat the average drunk driver,
(21:20):
check this out, the averagedrunk driver will drive drunk 80
times before they are caught andarrested for that first DUI.
80 times.
Essentially that means that theaverage drunk drivers actually
many times over multiple repeatoffender when he first stands
before the judge, they justdon't have the record to prove
(21:40):
it.
I thought I'd share that withyou.
Speaking of repeat offenders,most of us would think that
since the first timer got hisbreak, I mean no jail and a PBJ
is quite a break, right?
If that first timer comes backagain with a new DUI, the judge
will give him a really good doseof that maximum one year
sentence.
Makes sense, right?
Well, that ain't reality, myfriends.
(22:02):
While a third of drunk drivingarrests are repeat offenders,
significant jail sentences stillare not imposed.
Judges vary significantly onrepeat offenders, but there
would have to be some unusualconduct or circumstance, like
maybe an accident for mostjudges to impose more than say
14 days for a second offense.
And I've seen many times where asecond offender won't get any
(22:22):
jail time at all.
For third time offenders, wewould hope that judges finally
get the hint that the defendantis a scofflaw and somebody who
just won't stop putting everyonein danger.
But even then, many judges won'tgive more than a 30 day sentence
for a third-timer.
Some will give more than 30, butagain, only if there is some
really unusual fact in the case.
But think about this (22:44):
Thirty days is only one twelfth of the
maximum sentence the court couldimpose for a first timer.
I guess your question could be,how many times does someone need
to get caught driving under theinfluence before the Court will
give him the maximum sentence?
In answering that question, Iwish I could tell you that at x
(23:05):
number of convictions for DUIs,it's a certainty or even a
likelihood that a defendant willget a year in jail.
Sorry, again.
I can't tell you that lie.
I've seen cases where thedefendant is on his seventh or
eighth conviction and he stilldidn't get a year.
In one case, I'm thinking ofparticular.
The man got six months.
That's it.
It was ridiculous.
(23:27):
Oh, you know, I almost forgotand actually this makes the
sentencing that's going on outthere even worse.
Repeat offenders are looking atmore than one year maximum.
A second-timer actually faces atwo year maximum sentence and a
third timer faces a three yearmaximum sentence.
But shoot, we can't even getjudges to give five or
six-timers a whole year max thata first-timer is subject to.
(23:50):
So those penalties in practicehave very little application.
Unfortunately, the legislaturewasted it's time enacting the
repeat offender penalties.
Even if someone does go to jail,almost every judge will grant
him work release.
Some, let them do their time onweekends too.
You know, anything to notdisrupt the life of a drunk
driver, because remember theattitude, drunk driving isn't
(24:12):
really all that bad, so weshouldn't inconvenience the poor
drunk driving guy or his family.
Let me move on before I getupset here to motor vehicle
manslaughter, those drunkdrivers that actually kill
people.
You say to me, Tony, surelythings get better for victims
and our communities in thesesituations.
I mean, after all, somebody'sdead.
(24:33):
Please tell me that the courtsget this right.
My answer to you is this, notonly do we not get it right, but
the situation, believe it ornot, is even worse than DUIs
without deaths.
Here's why (24:45):
Let's start with the penalties again.
You know, at least in a normalnonfatal DUI, the penalty
available to the judge, by thatI mean the statutory maximum of
one year, it's reasonable.
I hope my sarcasm didn't makeyou think that I'm advocating
that first timers should begoing to jail for more than a
year in the absence of a deathor a life-threatening injury.
(25:07):
I'm not.
I think a year gives a judgeplenty of leeway to fashion and
impactful sentence for a DUIwhen nobody is hurt.
They don't do so, but they havethe power to.
So a maximum of a year isreasonable in those cases, and I
have no problem with the two andthree year max sentences for
repeat offenders.
Again, when no one is seriouslyhurt.
(25:28):
On the other hand, I've got abig problem with a totally
unreasonable maximum sentencefor motor vehicle manslaughter.
You see in Maryland the maximumpenalty for killing someone in a
drunk driving crash is 10 years.
That's it.
Ten years.
By way of comparison, themaximum sentence for first or
second degree murder is life,forty years, respectfully.
(25:52):
Now, I'm not going to argue thatthe sentence for manslaughter
should be as high as that, butyou know what?
I think all would agree that thepenalty for killing someone, for
taking them off the face of theearth forever, should be more
than what you can get for theft.
That's right.
The penalty for felony theft canbe 20 years.
What about burglary?
Twenty years.
Or drug dealing?
20 years.
(26:12):
Misdemeanor assault, forgoodness sake, it's 10 years.
Now wait a second.
Are you telling me I can get thesame amount of time for a simple
non-aggravated assault as I canfor killing someone?
Yeah.
That's how incomprehensibly lowthe maximum sentence for motor
vehicle manslaughter is.
Ten years is an insult tovictims' families and screams
out that we don't care aboutdrunk driving even if you kill
(26:35):
somebody.
Now, to make matters worse,judges rarely even impose the
full 10 year sentence anyway.
In my experience, most sentencesare five years or less, which
means it is a rarity to see aman slaughterer spend more than
say, 18 months behind bars onceyou factor in parole.
Eighteen months for killingsomeone.
But let's be real, even if thejudge did give a maximum
(26:58):
sentence, are you trying to tellme a toddler, a young child, a
teenager, a college student,mom, dad, that anyone's life is
only worth 10 years?
Well, not to me, and that's thereal point.
Even the legislature, yourrepresentatives that decide what
the maximum penalties are forall crimes and that you have
influence with, by the way, eventhe legislature, doesn't take
(27:19):
DUIs, at least the deadly ones,serious enough either.
Another huge signal that wedon't care or do enough would be
the lack of resources weallocate to catch drunk drivers.
Check this out (27:30):
in a 2014 extensive study, American
drivers voluntarilyself-reported that they drove
after having too much to drinkapproximately a 111 million
times that year.
In that same year, just over 1million people were arrested for
drunk driving.
So the 111 million self reportedepisodes of drunk driving that
(27:52):
year, only one percent of theepisodes ended in arrest.
Only one percent.
That's one out of 100 werecaught.
Now, at first blush, you maythink that's bad policing.
I don't think so.
What it shows is a lack ofresources to deal with an
incredibly large and dangerousproblem.
You know, I'm fond of sayingthat governments put money and
(28:12):
resources into those things thatthey feel are important.
Only having enough resources tocatch one percent of drunk
drivers speaks volumes about howseriously we take drunk driving,
doesn't it?
In fact, nothing else reallyneeds to be said on the resource
issue to show that we don'ttruly care about saving lives by
preventing drunk driving.
(28:33):
Sure, we care when a life isextinguished, but we haven't
cared enough to do enough byputting the resources in place
to prevent drunk driving andthat's shown by one percent of
drunk drivers being caught.
Now that leads me into my lasttopic before the big finish.
Though last, I probably shouldhave led off with this point
(28:54):
because it's so obviously a hugereason for drunk driving being
such a devastating andpersistent plague on our nation.
Here it is.
We have so many drunk driversbecause we rely on drunk people
to decide if they're fit todrive.
You know, one day somebody gaveme this very good advice: Don't
rely on someone who's drunk.
I think it's great advice.
Yet everyday we as a societyrely on people who have been
(29:16):
drinking, oftentimes far toomuch, to keep us safe on our
roadways.
I mean, is anyone reallysurprised that we have so many
drunk drivers when we rely onthe drunk people to determine if
they are too drunk to drive?
While our catchphrase againstdrunk driving is don't drink and
drive, that's not the law.
The law in Maryland andthroughout this entire country
(29:37):
is don't drink too much anddrive, so the law itself says
it's fine to drink and drive.
Just don't overdo it.
Which of course leaves us all atthe mercy of drunk people
determining for themselveswhether they overdid it or not.
Common sense tells me thatletting people with alcohol, a
substance that messes withpeople's brains, in their system
(29:58):
assess their own sobriety is nota good idea.
But I wasn't in the room whenfolks decided that we were going
to allow people to drink somebut not too much and have them
decide whether they drank toomuch.
If I had been in a room, I wouldhave told them that this is
crazy.
I would have explained to themthat science has proven over and
over again that the advice I gotmany years ago about relying on
(30:20):
a drunk is accurate.
I would have referred them tomore than 10,000 families that
year that would have told themhow stupid and deadly an idea
that was.
I would have given him over10,000 examples of people that
proclaim they were fit to drive,went ahead and drove their cars
and promptly killed somebody.
But I wasn't in that room.
(30:40):
So the sake of discussion, let'sjust ignore how crazy an idea
that is.
Realistically, we must becausethat's what we allow to happen
every day, and even if wethought it was a good idea,
there's still a huge problemwith self-assessment.
People just can't accurately doit.
You know research scientistshave shown for years that
(31:00):
there's a direct correlationbetween how much alcohol is in
your system and the impact itwill have on your ability to
drive safely.
They tested people's motorskills, reaction times,
judgment, all those things youneed to be able to drive after
they had ingested differentamounts of alcohol.
And over the years, thescientific community came to
agree that at a particular bloodalcohol level, a person's
(31:22):
ability to drive a car safelywill be compromised.
Compromised to the point thatthey would pose a substantial
risk to themselves and anyoneelse on the roads.
That's why we can confidentlysay that if you have a specific
amount of alcohol in yoursystem,.08 is the breathalyzer
reading.
You are impaired and here's whatyou really need to understand:
(31:44):
whether a person subjectivelyfeels that he is impaired or
not.
If he has a.08 in his system, heis impaired.
Not only does the law say that,but far more importantly for
this discussion, science hasproven it time and again.
Let me go over that againbecause for some reason people
don't seem to grasp the criticalfinding by medical science this
(32:08):
is.
Science says that no matter howsomebody subjectively feels,
that is, even if they honestlydon't think they're buzzed or
slurring their words,staggering, wetting themselves,
whatever, if they have a.08 intheir system, they are impaired.
In fact, all the faculties theyneed to safely drive a car are
impaired whether theysubjectively feel it or not.
(32:32):
How they feel is irrelevant.
So in that situation, how canwe, why would we ever rely on
that person to decide if he orshe should drive?
We shouldn't, but we do it allthe time.
It's plain lunacy to me.
Now, for some reason, peoplethink that they're overall
judgment, their decision-makingpowers, are not impaired as
(32:53):
easily as the other things youneed to drive.
You know, motor skills,coordination, all that.
But it is.
In fact, to prove it we needlook no further than everyone's
own life experiences.
How many times have you orsomeone you know had to
apologize for doing somethingstupid or hurtful to someone
when drinking and they went homewith somebody that they
otherwise wouldn't have gonehome with.
(33:16):
They punch somebody in the facefor basically no reason,
something they'd never do ifthey were sober.
Look, alcohol reducesinhibitions and screws up your
judgment and that judgment, thatdecision making ability is what
is needed to recognize thatyou've had too much to drink and
to make the right decision notto drive a car.
(33:39):
Not withstanding all of this, weleave it to people to self
assess and regulate themselves.
This is America after all,people are free to do what they
want to do.
So in the name of freedom, welet Johnny determine whether
he's good to drive or not.
How's Johnny or anybody going toknow if they've had too much
when they've been drinking andalcohol impairs that decision
(34:01):
making ability.
Now, before I close up here, letme tell you something related to
assessing your sobriety.
More specifically, trying toquickly sober up with some home
remedy.
Let me deal with the three thatI've heard the most about.
This'll be quick.
First, contrary to popularbelief, coffee does not sober
you up.
(34:22):
It may wake you up, get youwired, whatever, but it
absolutely does not lessen theimpairment to your motor skills,
reaction time, decision making,judgment, all those things that
you have to have to safely drivea car.
Second, exercise doesn't helpeither.
Third, take a cold showerdoesn't help either.
(34:44):
These home remedies to sober youup fast just don't work.
And how many people have youknown that have had too much to
drink but went ahead and droveafter they quote unquote sobered
up by doing one of these homeremedies?
All they did was fool themselvesand they may have felt more
awake.
I mean, it got their heartpumping and got cardio in for
the day, or smelled a lotbetter, but guess what?
(35:06):
They were still drunk and wenton the road and put themselves
and many others at risk, soplease do us all a favor and
pass the truth along that onlytime will sober you up.
Time is what is needed.
The body must be given time tometabolize the poison that
alcohol is to the human body andflush it out.
And that's that.
We all know time waits for noone, but it also won't speed up
(35:30):
for anyone either.
And coffee, exercise and coldshower can't help time in this
regard.
Best thing to do is sleep it offat a friend's house or wherever.
Finally, we arrive at the bigfinish.
As I close, let me highlightsomething for you.
One out of eight drunk driversinvolved in a fatal crash have a
(35:50):
prior DUI within three years ofthat crash.
That means that by far most ofthe drunk drivers killing people
have no prior DUIs.
They are first timers with noreal incentive not to drive
drunk.
They live in our communities.
They knew how we think of andtreat drunk drivers.
Not bad, not bad at all.
(36:11):
So they knew that the odds ofthem getting caught were slim
and none, and even if they werecaught, they knew nothing of
real consequence would happen tothem in court.
With this terrible combinationof woefully inadequate
resourcing and the lack ofbehavior-changing sentencing in
our courts, it's no wonder somany people take the risk and
drive drunk.
They believe, like everycriminal, that the risk is worth
(36:34):
whatever they think the rewardis.
All the death that comes from asociety just not caring about
those family members, thoseseven year old boys that are
left behind to pick up thepieces.
It's sad, but it also makes meangry, I'm not gonna lie about
it.
Angry because, as I've said, allof this is preventable and I
went through all of these causesso we can talk about the
(36:54):
solutions.
Please listen to Part Two of thedrunk driving episode where I
will tell you how we really canprevent this scourge.
Prevention won't happenovernight, but I'm sure we can
get it done.
Thank you for listening to theofficial podcast of the Charles
County State's Attorney'sOffice.
I'm your State's Attorney, TonyCovington.
I'm signing off just like myfather, Major George Vassar
Covington would (37:17):
Rangers Lead the Way.
Covington Out.
Welcome, Tony Covington, your State's Attorney
here.
If you heard my first podcast,you know that I try to answer a
couple of questions from thepublic at the end of each
episode.
Well, this episode and the nextare actually going to be me
answering two questions thathave been posed to me many times
before.
Many people want to know why wehave so many drunk drivers out
there and what we can do to stopit.
(00:37):
Since neither of those questionscan be answered in a couple of
minutes.
I decided to devote an entireepisode to each question.
This episode, part one, will beabout the problem with drunk
driving and its causes.
It sounds straightforward, but Ithink you'll be surprised at
some of the things I reveal andafter outlining the problem in
part one, part two, we'll dealwith the solutions to what
(00:57):
really is an epidemic.
And by the way, if you thinkthis epidemic won't impact you,
the odds say you're mistaken.
Two out of three people will beimpacted by a drunk driving
crash in their lifetime, sounfortunately you probably will
be forced to deal with theaftermath of a drunk driving
collision at some point in yourlife, so please keep listening.
(01:18):
Since the holiday season is uponus, which means that more than
the usual number of drunkdrivers are going to be out
there on our roadways.
I figured now would be a goodtime to talk about drunk driving
and the mayhem that results fromit, but before I get into the
causes and solutions to thishuge problem, let me give you a
true life account of the impactdrunk driving has on families
and our communities.
(01:39):
Seven year old boy is sitting athome along with his grandmother,
mother, four brothers andsisters.
He and the other kids aresubdued because they can feel
their mother's anxiety over thefact that her husband, the kid's
father, is very, very latecoming home.
Even more worrisome to them isthat he's unreachable and no one
(02:00):
knows where he is.
The boy can't wait for hisfather, his everyday real life
hero, to come strolling throughthe door, grab him and his two
brothers and start the roughhousing that occurs every night
Dad comes home.
Despite this anticipation ofthat moment, he like everyone
else in the house was nervous.
All of them jump when they hearthe unexpected shrill sound of
(02:21):
the phone ring.
The boy watches as his motherpicks up the phone.
After a few moments of talkingwith whoever's on the other end
of the line, the boy sees hismother, seemingly in slow
motion, turn towards him and hissiblings with the look of pure
terror on her face.
It's a look that will haunt theboy for the rest of his life,
(02:42):
but the look on her face can'tcompare to the sound that
explodes from her mouth.
A scream, a primal scream thatsounds as if someone has plunged
their hand into her chest andripped out her very soul.
It is a sound made.
When someone realizes thateverything they have worked for,
everything they have dreamed oftheir entire life, that which
(03:02):
they love the most is in onefell swoop destroyed right
before their very eyes.
Throughout the boy's life thatunforgettable sound is with him
when he wakes up in a coldsweat, because of the all too
often nightmares about the awfulnight and the days that followed
his father's death.
Now seven years old, the boy wastoo young to understand what
(03:24):
daddy is dead truly meant.
For years, he woke up everymorning thinking his father
would be at the breakfast table,reading the paper, drinking his
coffee.
Every time the front dooropened, he believed dad was
going to come strutting intohouse, surprising everyone just
like he did when he had returnedfrom Vietnam.
But once the boy got old enoughand dad never again showed up at
(03:46):
the breakfast table and neveragain walked through their front
door, he finally understood thatdeath truly meant never again.
Yet, even understanding that hewould never see his father
again, throughout his entirelife this boy, turned teenager,
turned young man, turnedmiddle-aged man, still dreams of
(04:08):
seeing his father walk into hishouse.
And in his dream he watches ashis father gets to see the
grandchildren he never knew andmeet the daughter-in-law he
never had a chance to meet.
And he watched as his father,with tears running down his
face, marvels at everything,that his middle child has
achieved over a lifetime.
(04:28):
In this dream the son asks hisfather why he's crying.
The father says, son, I'm cryingfor two reasons, partly because
I'm so proud of the man you havebecome and all that you have
done in your life.
Mostly I'm crying because Iwasn't able to be there with
you.
And make no mistake, the boywasn't the only one devastated
by this tragedy.
(04:49):
His entire family would struggleafter his dad was killed, the
father's senseless, totallypreventable death impacted every
member of the family for alltheir days.
They found that the loss of hisfather became bearable, not
because the wound of a violentsenseless death ever healed.
The wound never healed.
No, the lost become bearableonly because there was no
(05:11):
alternative.
Life went on and they had nochoice but to keep moving
forward.
Keep living life.
Throughout their lives, however,no matter how high they rose, no
how great a day it may be, theirdays are always a little less
bright because that little boy'sfather was taken away and just
couldn't be there for them.
And all this because some drunkdriver crossed the double yellow
(05:34):
line on an Alabama road and at70 miles an hour slammed head on
into his father's Volvo.
In an instant, the boy's fatherwas taken from this earth, from
his mother, from his wife, fromhis children, never to be seen
or heard again.
Never again.
(05:57):
Trust me, I know this is not apleasant subject, especially
during this cheer-filled holidayseason, but it is incredibly
important.
Why?
Well, to answer that let me giveyou some idea of the scope of
the problem.
In America, the land of the freeand the home of the brave, every
single year, more than 10,000people are killed by drunk
drivers.
(06:17):
Drunk driving deaths account forfully a third of all traffic
fatalities in the country.
That's one out of three trafficfatalities.
Think about that.
More than 10,000 living,breathing souls gone forever.
Ten thousand deaths a year meansthat every single hour of every
single day at least one personin America is killed by a drunk
(06:38):
driver.
It means every single hour,every single day at least one
family like that seven-year-oldboy's family you just heard
about is devastated and scarredfor life by a drunk driver.
Think on this for a second, howmany people are killed while
you're watching a movie orduring your commute to and from
work each day?
One, two, three, four?
(06:59):
You know when you think of itthat way, it's kind of
unbelievable, isn't it?
And those numbers relate just tothe deaths from drunk driving.
Almost 300,000 people a year areinjured in drunk driving
crashes.
Every two minutes, yeah, I saidtwo- as in uno, dos, two- every
two minutes someone is injuredin a drunk driving crash.
So every hour at least 30 peoplepotentially have their lives
(07:22):
forever changed.
They may be alive, but maimed orcrippled, and I'm not even going
to get into the mental andemotional toll drunk driving
crashes take on people.
It's basically impossible toquantify.
They have, however, been able toquantify the financial costs of
drunk driving.
The total is 132 billion.
That's right with a b, billiondollars a year.
(07:43):
That's more than three timesMaryland's entire state budget.
Now, those are nationalstatistics, so you asked me
about closer to home.
Well, here in the great state ofMaryland, we do our share to
contribute to the distressingdeath toll.
In Maryland, over the past 10years, someone has been killed
by a drunk driver about everyother day.
(08:04):
That's right.
Family doesn't grieve today inMaryland, unfortunately you can
safely bet that one will begrieving tomorrow.
All this death and mayhem simplybecause someone who had too much
to drink didn't have the commondecency to not get behind the
wheel and drive a 4,000 poundweapon that we normally call a
car.
And to me, the worst of it allis that this horror that we deal
(08:26):
with basically every singleminute of every day is
preventable.
And since it is preventable,given this kind of yearly
casualty that we have, you wouldthink that collectively, we'd be
doing everything in our power tostop drunk driving and save
lives.
Well, sadly, I'm here to tellyou that we aren't and because
(08:48):
we aren't, I need to talk to youabout how we got to this awful
place where so many lives areneedlessly lost.
And actually it's not hard tofigure out how we got here.
First, we as a society justdon't care enough about the
problem.
Secondly, although we certainlyhave the means to eliminate
drunk driving, we simply don'tdo enough to fix the problem.
I know these are prettygeneralized reasons but bear
(09:10):
with me and I'll give you thedetails that lead directly to my
conclusions here.
Let's start with the fact thatwe don't care enough about this
problem.
It is clear as day to me that asa society we don't consider or
treat drunk driving as a seriouscrime that it really is.
Sure, we go through the motionsof combating the menace and
don't get me wrong, includingthe police and prosecutors are
certainly many dedicated,motivated, good people and
(09:33):
organizations out there fightingthe good fight.
MADD stands for Mothers AgainstDrunk Driving.
That's just one of the wellknown examples, but overall, as
a society, our behavior and howwe allocate society's resources
reveals that we just don't careenough.
This is especially true of drunkdriving that leads to death.
There are several interlockingreasons that I think demonstrate
(09:54):
that this is true.
Let me get into them.
First, let's talk about how weview the root cause of drunk
driving.
We tend to see drunk drivers assalt of the earth people that
just made a mistake.
Folks say, well, they were justdoing what so many of us do,
enjoying some alcohol and theymade the mistake of letting
alcohol get the best of them.
A mistake that any of us couldmake, they say.
(10:17):
Our society, and veryimportantly, our courts tend to
think and act like alcoholitself is the problem.
What I mean by that, well let metell you what typically happens
in court when someone is chargedwith drunk driving and I think
you'll get where I'm comingfrom.
When someone gets charged withdrunk driving, the first thing
that an attorney will do is tohave their client go get an
(10:37):
evaluation to see if they havean alcohol problem and if
necessary, get treatment.
Believe it or not, there is awhole industry set up for this.
Anyway.
Then at the sentencing of theguilty drunk driver, the first
thing out of the attorney'smouth is, Judge, my client has
been evaluated and he doesn'thave an alcohol problem.
He's learned his lesson.
Please don't do anything to him,and the judge says, well, I'm
(10:59):
glad you don't have an alcoholproblem, sir.
Go forth from this courtroom andsin no more.
Now, even if the drunk driverdoes have an alcohol problem,
the judge will order him to dosome Alcoholics Anonymous
classes or some other treatmentplan or the court just may
accept the treatment theclient's attorney already had
them get before he then says, goforth from this courtroom and
(11:20):
sin no more.
Now that scenario plays outthousands of times a week in our
nation's courtrooms.
The attorney's focus and thecourts focus are on whether the
drunk driver has an alcoholproblem, so the court just wants
the defendant to get help forthat issue and the theory goes
all will be fine.
Unfortunately, that's just flatout wrong.
(11:41):
Alcohol doesn't cause drunkdriving.
Sure, the crime of driving underthe influence of alcohol
requires the alcohol.
Yeah.
You can't have one without theother.
I get that.
Still, I say again, alcohol doesnot cause the crime.
Hear me out for a minute furtherso I can drive my point home.
No pun intended there.
Tell me if you have ever heard atrue life version of the
(12:03):
following scenario.
Drunk driver is in court forsentencing.
He tells the court that thereason he was driving drunk that
night was because he and hisbuddies were at the bar watching
the game.
He had some beers during thegame.
When their team won, they didsome shots to celebrate.
Now as he was drinking thesebeers, he tells the Judge he
(12:24):
felt this strange compulsion togo drive his car and with each
successive shot that he gulpeddown the compulsion to drive
just got stronger, stronger andstronger.
Finally, he gave in and justleft his boys at the bar and got
in his car and just starteddriving.
Then he wrecked the car and wasarrested.
Judge, he said, I just couldn'thelp myself.
(12:45):
Kinda like Jamie Foxx saying,you know, blame it on the
alcohol.
Am I right?
You never heard anyone say that,have you?
Neither have I.
And that's because it doesn'thappen.
If alcohol caused drunk driving,I would have heard that
ridiculous excuse thousands oftimes over my career, but I've
never heard it because alcoholain't the cause of drunk
driving.
(13:06):
It's clearly part of the crime,but not itself the cause.
And as a prosecutor, I've triedto make judges understand that
the alcohol or an alcoholproblem isn't the culprit.
Let me tell you, I can't counthow many times I told judges at
sentencing that I could not careless how much Johnny boy loves
alcohol.
(13:26):
He can drink himself silly allday and night as far as I'm
concerned.
He's grown, can do what he wantsin that regard.
I couldn't stop him if I wantedto.
As a prosecutor, what I careabout is that he doesn't get
behind the wheel of a car afterdrinking and I told those judges
to give a sentence that willmake Johnny think two, three,
four times before he drivesdrunk again.
(13:46):
I focused on the decision todrive, not the drinking.
And I do so because when youboil it down, it is a selfish,
reckless, depraved heartdecision to get behind the wheel
after drinking that truly causesdrunk driving and all the
carnage that comes with it.
It is not the alcohol itself.
(14:06):
Now, because we erroneouslyfocus on the alcohol as opposed
to the decision to drive, we seedrunk drivers as merely a good
guy that made a mistake.
We tend to believe that it's nothis fault.
He's not responsible for hisconduct, so we should not treat
him too harshly.
Contrary, we've used, say ashoplifter, as a criminal.
She took someone else'sproperty.
She committed a crime.
(14:28):
We ought to lock her thievingbehind up.
Well, truth be told, the drunkdriver committed a crime too.
A real honest to God crime.
In fact, a real dangerous crime.
Remember, drunk drivers killsomebody every hour of every
day.
Do shoplifters?
Uh, no.
No, they don't.
Now, despite the very routinedeadly consequences of drunk
driving, we give drunk driversall kinds of excuses to excuse
(14:52):
their criminal behavior.
He's a good guy.
He just made a poor decision.
He was depressed because he justgot fired or he was celebrating.
He just got a promotion or hejust got engaged or he got a
baby.
He bought a new lawn mower.
Anything.
We say anything to give thedrunk driver a break and to not
call him a criminal or treat himlike other criminals.
(15:15):
Shoot.
We do it so much that drunkdrivers themselves, even those
that kill people don't accept orrecognize that their conduct is
criminal.
Here's a true story example ofthat: We had a defendant that
was driving drunk and she failedto yield the right of way to a
motorcyclist.
The cyclist was killed.
She was convicted, sentenced,served her sentence, and had
(15:35):
been placed on probation.
She violated the conditions ofher probation, which meant that
she was subject to whatever partof her sentence that had been
suspended.
Now, as we were going throughthe process of asking the judge
to violate her probation andreincarcerate her, she
complained bitterly that we, theprosecutors and judge, were
(15:56):
treating her like quote, acriminal, unquote.
Yeah.
Those are her words.
And they came out of her mouth.
She was very upset that we hadthe nerve to hold her
accountable like we would anyother criminal and just so you
know, we did hold heraccountable and she did go back
to jail, but that's not mypoint.
My point is that she and so manylike her can't wrap their mind
(16:18):
around why they're being treatedlike a criminal and they can't
because collectively our societydoesn't really view them as
criminals either.
So why should they seethemselves as anything other
than a good guy or gal that madea simple innocent mistake that
had grave consequences?
Well, I hate to break the newsto drunk drivers and everyone
else, but the somber truth isthat when a drunk driver decides
(16:41):
to get behind the wheel of thatcar and start the engine, he has
the exact same mentality thatevery other criminal has when
they commit their crimes.
At that moment, they don't careabout anybody else's life or
well-being.
All they want is what they wantin that moment.
The laws can be damned, they aregoing to do whatever they dag on
please, and on top of that, likeevery criminal defendant I've
(17:01):
ever dealt with, they firmlybelieve, I mean firmly believe
they aren't going to get caught.
That's the mindset of everydrunk driver, including the
drunk driver that killed thatseven year old boy's father, and
it's the same mindset of everymurderer, rapist, robber,
burglar, child molester, thiefwhen they commit their crimes.
(17:22):
The mindsets are exactly thesame.
So this drunk driving isn't areal crime attitude, it
manifests itself in thedecision-making process of drunk
drivers when they choose betweendriving or giving up their keys.
Can't you just hear them sayingto themselves, yeah, I'm going
to go ahead and drive home.
It's not like I'm committing areal crime or anything.
On a macro level, the attitudethat DUIs aren't a big deal also
(17:45):
manifests itself and how we as asociety cope with it, how
serious we take it.
Why would we take anythingseriously that we don't believe
is a real crime or problem?
We wouldn't and we don't.
And that's a problem.
And guess what?
Even our criminal justicesystem, the very system we look
to for control of this problemreflects this attitude and even
(18:09):
reinforces the thought thatdrunk driving isn't really a
serious crime.
Before I tackle this topic, letme say right off the bat that I
believe the criminal justicesystem reflects how we, the
people, feel about crime.
So to deal with this, I'm nottrying to say that the system is
out of touch with what oursociety wants.
I'm not bashing police or judgesor anybody.
Quite frankly, in my view, mostcitizens are right in step with
(18:30):
how the system deals with drunkdrivers, which is part of my
point as being part of theproblem.
Now, our courts signals to thepublic that drunk driving isn't
a big deal by failing to imposesentences that would effectively
deter changed behavior of drunkdrivers.
I know that we hear and see inthe media strident language; it
makes us believe drunk driversreally suffer when they get
(18:52):
caught and go to court.
Well, I wish that was the case,but I gotta be honest, it's not.
At the risk of being accused ofencouraging somebody to go and
drive drunk, I'm going to keepit real and tell you what
actually happens with drunkdrivers in court.
Obviously all judges aredifferent.
So what I'm about to lay out foryou is as general as general can
get.
(19:12):
Nevertheless, it's accurate andI think you'll conclude that
impactful consequences for drunkdrivers are sorely missing in
Maryland courts.
The penalties, not the laws onthe books, but the real
penalties.
The courts impose day in and dayout.
Penalties for drunk driving aretoo low and weak to make a real
difference.
Now at this point, I'm onlytalking about your average run
(19:33):
of the mill DUI.
No death or serious injuryinvolved.
I'll get to the ongoing travestyof how courts deal with the
cases where a drunk driveractually killed someone in a
bit.
Now the statutory maximumsentence for a run of the mill
driving under the influence caseis one year in jail.
Despite that maximum penalty,it's been my experience that in
just about every courtroom inMaryland, a first time DUI
(19:55):
offender isn't going to serve aday in jail.
More than that, when it's allsaid and done, that first time
offender won't even have aconviction for the DUI on his
record.
He will almost always receivewhat is called probation before
judgment, PBJ for short.
A PBJ is a mechanism in Marylandthat allows somebody to be
sentenced for a crime and that'sany crime, not just DUIs, but
(20:17):
not having an actual convictionrecorded on their criminal or
traffic record.
Now in the MVA drunk drivingworld that's very valuable to a
defendant because they don't getthe points on their record that
would automatically suspendtheir license.
And to be fair, some courtsrequire the defendant to earn
that PBJ.
The judge will give somebody theoption of going to jail for a
(20:37):
couple of days or paying a fineor doing community service in
exchange for the PBJ, but in myopinion, there's absolutely no
behavior changing sentencing offirst time offenders in
Maryland.
A couple of days in jail ain'tchanging anybody's behavior and
since two thirds of all drunkdriving arrests are first time
offenders, most convicted drunkdrivers merely get the
(20:58):
proverbial slap on the wrist.
But since we don't see drunkdriving as a real crime or a
serious crime, what else wouldwe expect from the courts?
And let me throw a stat outthere, and this is kind of
random, but it blew my mind thefirst time I heard it.
According to the self reportingsurveys and studies that were
done, researchers have concludedthat the average drunk driver,
(21:20):
check this out, the averagedrunk driver will drive drunk 80
times before they are caught andarrested for that first DUI.
80 times.
Essentially that means that theaverage drunk drivers actually
many times over multiple repeatoffender when he first stands
before the judge, they justdon't have the record to prove
(21:40):
it.
I thought I'd share that withyou.
Speaking of repeat offenders,most of us would think that
since the first timer got hisbreak, I mean no jail and a PBJ
is quite a break, right?
If that first timer comes backagain with a new DUI, the judge
will give him a really good doseof that maximum one year
sentence.
Makes sense, right?
Well, that ain't reality, myfriends.
(22:02):
While a third of drunk drivingarrests are repeat offenders,
significant jail sentences stillare not imposed.
Judges vary significantly onrepeat offenders, but there
would have to be some unusualconduct or circumstance, like
maybe an accident for mostjudges to impose more than say
14 days for a second offense.
And I've seen many times where asecond offender won't get any
(22:22):
jail time at all.
For third time offenders, wewould hope that judges finally
get the hint that the defendantis a scofflaw and somebody who
just won't stop putting everyonein danger.
But even then, many judges won'tgive more than a 30 day sentence
for a third-timer.
Some will give more than 30, butagain, only if there is some
really unusual fact in the case.
But think about this (22:44):
Thirty days is only one twelfth of the
maximum sentence the court couldimpose for a first timer.
I guess your question could be,how many times does someone need
to get caught driving under theinfluence before the Court will
give him the maximum sentence?
In answering that question, Iwish I could tell you that at x
(23:05):
number of convictions for DUIs,it's a certainty or even a
likelihood that a defendant willget a year in jail.
Sorry, again.
I can't tell you that lie.
I've seen cases where thedefendant is on his seventh or
eighth conviction and he stilldidn't get a year.
In one case, I'm thinking ofparticular.
The man got six months.
That's it.
It was ridiculous.
(23:27):
Oh, you know, I almost forgotand actually this makes the
sentencing that's going on outthere even worse.
Repeat offenders are looking atmore than one year maximum.
A second-timer actually faces atwo year maximum sentence and a
third timer faces a three yearmaximum sentence.
But shoot, we can't even getjudges to give five or
six-timers a whole year max thata first-timer is subject to.
(23:50):
So those penalties in practicehave very little application.
Unfortunately, the legislaturewasted it's time enacting the
repeat offender penalties.
Even if someone does go to jail,almost every judge will grant
him work release.
Some, let them do their time onweekends too.
You know, anything to notdisrupt the life of a drunk
driver, because remember theattitude, drunk driving isn't
(24:12):
really all that bad, so weshouldn't inconvenience the poor
drunk driving guy or his family.
Let me move on before I getupset here to motor vehicle
manslaughter, those drunkdrivers that actually kill
people.
You say to me, Tony, surelythings get better for victims
and our communities in thesesituations.
I mean, after all, somebody'sdead.
(24:33):
Please tell me that the courtsget this right.
My answer to you is this, notonly do we not get it right, but
the situation, believe it ornot, is even worse than DUIs
without deaths.
Here's why (24:45):
Let's start with the penalties again.
You know, at least in a normalnonfatal DUI, the penalty
available to the judge, by thatI mean the statutory maximum of
one year, it's reasonable.
I hope my sarcasm didn't makeyou think that I'm advocating
that first timers should begoing to jail for more than a
year in the absence of a deathor a life-threatening injury.
(25:07):
I'm not.
I think a year gives a judgeplenty of leeway to fashion and
impactful sentence for a DUIwhen nobody is hurt.
They don't do so, but they havethe power to.
So a maximum of a year isreasonable in those cases, and I
have no problem with the two andthree year max sentences for
repeat offenders.
Again, when no one is seriouslyhurt.
(25:28):
On the other hand, I've got abig problem with a totally
unreasonable maximum sentencefor motor vehicle manslaughter.
You see in Maryland the maximumpenalty for killing someone in a
drunk driving crash is 10 years.
That's it.
Ten years.
By way of comparison, themaximum sentence for first or
second degree murder is life,forty years, respectfully.
(25:52):
Now, I'm not going to argue thatthe sentence for manslaughter
should be as high as that, butyou know what?
I think all would agree that thepenalty for killing someone, for
taking them off the face of theearth forever, should be more
than what you can get for theft.
That's right.
The penalty for felony theft canbe 20 years.
What about burglary?
Twenty years.
Or drug dealing?
20 years.
(26:12):
Misdemeanor assault, forgoodness sake, it's 10 years.
Now wait a second.
Are you telling me I can get thesame amount of time for a simple
non-aggravated assault as I canfor killing someone?
Yeah.
That's how incomprehensibly lowthe maximum sentence for motor
vehicle manslaughter is.
Ten years is an insult tovictims' families and screams
out that we don't care aboutdrunk driving even if you kill
(26:35):
somebody.
Now, to make matters worse,judges rarely even impose the
full 10 year sentence anyway.
In my experience, most sentencesare five years or less, which
means it is a rarity to see aman slaughterer spend more than
say, 18 months behind bars onceyou factor in parole.
Eighteen months for killingsomeone.
But let's be real, even if thejudge did give a maximum
(26:58):
sentence, are you trying to tellme a toddler, a young child, a
teenager, a college student,mom, dad, that anyone's life is
only worth 10 years?
Well, not to me, and that's thereal point.
Even the legislature, yourrepresentatives that decide what
the maximum penalties are forall crimes and that you have
influence with, by the way, eventhe legislature, doesn't take
(27:19):
DUIs, at least the deadly ones,serious enough either.
Another huge signal that wedon't care or do enough would be
the lack of resources weallocate to catch drunk drivers.
Check this out (27:30):
in a 2014 extensive study, American
drivers voluntarilyself-reported that they drove
after having too much to drinkapproximately a 111 million
times that year.
In that same year, just over 1million people were arrested for
drunk driving.
So the 111 million self reportedepisodes of drunk driving that
(27:52):
year, only one percent of theepisodes ended in arrest.
Only one percent.
That's one out of 100 werecaught.
Now, at first blush, you maythink that's bad policing.
I don't think so.
What it shows is a lack ofresources to deal with an
incredibly large and dangerousproblem.
You know, I'm fond of sayingthat governments put money and
(28:12):
resources into those things thatthey feel are important.
Only having enough resources tocatch one percent of drunk
drivers speaks volumes about howseriously we take drunk driving,
doesn't it?
In fact, nothing else reallyneeds to be said on the resource
issue to show that we don'ttruly care about saving lives by
preventing drunk driving.
(28:33):
Sure, we care when a life isextinguished, but we haven't
cared enough to do enough byputting the resources in place
to prevent drunk driving andthat's shown by one percent of
drunk drivers being caught.
Now that leads me into my lasttopic before the big finish.
Though last, I probably shouldhave led off with this point
(28:54):
because it's so obviously a hugereason for drunk driving being
such a devastating andpersistent plague on our nation.
Here it is.
We have so many drunk driversbecause we rely on drunk people
to decide if they're fit todrive.
You know, one day somebody gaveme this very good advice: Don't
rely on someone who's drunk.
I think it's great advice.
Yet everyday we as a societyrely on people who have been
(29:16):
drinking, oftentimes far toomuch, to keep us safe on our
roadways.
I mean, is anyone reallysurprised that we have so many
drunk drivers when we rely onthe drunk people to determine if
they are too drunk to drive?
While our catchphrase againstdrunk driving is don't drink and
drive, that's not the law.
The law in Maryland andthroughout this entire country
(29:37):
is don't drink too much anddrive, so the law itself says
it's fine to drink and drive.
Just don't overdo it.
Which of course leaves us all atthe mercy of drunk people
determining for themselveswhether they overdid it or not.
Common sense tells me thatletting people with alcohol, a
substance that messes withpeople's brains, in their system
(29:58):
assess their own sobriety is nota good idea.
But I wasn't in the room whenfolks decided that we were going
to allow people to drink somebut not too much and have them
decide whether they drank toomuch.
If I had been in a room, I wouldhave told them that this is
crazy.
I would have explained to themthat science has proven over and
over again that the advice I gotmany years ago about relying on
(30:20):
a drunk is accurate.
I would have referred them tomore than 10,000 families that
year that would have told themhow stupid and deadly an idea
that was.
I would have given him over10,000 examples of people that
proclaim they were fit to drive,went ahead and drove their cars
and promptly killed somebody.
But I wasn't in that room.
(30:40):
So the sake of discussion, let'sjust ignore how crazy an idea
that is.
Realistically, we must becausethat's what we allow to happen
every day, and even if wethought it was a good idea,
there's still a huge problemwith self-assessment.
People just can't accurately doit.
You know research scientistshave shown for years that
(31:00):
there's a direct correlationbetween how much alcohol is in
your system and the impact itwill have on your ability to
drive safely.
They tested people's motorskills, reaction times,
judgment, all those things youneed to be able to drive after
they had ingested differentamounts of alcohol.
And over the years, thescientific community came to
agree that at a particular bloodalcohol level, a person's
(31:22):
ability to drive a car safelywill be compromised.
Compromised to the point thatthey would pose a substantial
risk to themselves and anyoneelse on the roads.
That's why we can confidentlysay that if you have a specific
amount of alcohol in yoursystem,.08 is the breathalyzer
reading.
You are impaired and here's whatyou really need to understand:
(31:44):
whether a person subjectivelyfeels that he is impaired or
not.
If he has a.08 in his system, heis impaired.
Not only does the law say that,but far more importantly for
this discussion, science hasproven it time and again.
Let me go over that againbecause for some reason people
don't seem to grasp the criticalfinding by medical science this
(32:08):
is.
Science says that no matter howsomebody subjectively feels,
that is, even if they honestlydon't think they're buzzed or
slurring their words,staggering, wetting themselves,
whatever, if they have a.08 intheir system, they are impaired.
In fact, all the faculties theyneed to safely drive a car are
impaired whether theysubjectively feel it or not.
(32:32):
How they feel is irrelevant.
So in that situation, how canwe, why would we ever rely on
that person to decide if he orshe should drive?
We shouldn't, but we do it allthe time.
It's plain lunacy to me.
Now, for some reason, peoplethink that they're overall
judgment, their decision-makingpowers, are not impaired as
(32:53):
easily as the other things youneed to drive.
You know, motor skills,coordination, all that.
But it is.
In fact, to prove it we needlook no further than everyone's
own life experiences.
How many times have you orsomeone you know had to
apologize for doing somethingstupid or hurtful to someone
when drinking and they went homewith somebody that they
otherwise wouldn't have gonehome with.
(33:16):
They punch somebody in the facefor basically no reason,
something they'd never do ifthey were sober.
Look, alcohol reducesinhibitions and screws up your
judgment and that judgment, thatdecision making ability is what
is needed to recognize thatyou've had too much to drink and
to make the right decision notto drive a car.
(33:39):
Not withstanding all of this, weleave it to people to self
assess and regulate themselves.
This is America after all,people are free to do what they
want to do.
So in the name of freedom, welet Johnny determine whether
he's good to drive or not.
How's Johnny or anybody going toknow if they've had too much
when they've been drinking andalcohol impairs that decision
(34:01):
making ability.
Now, before I close up here, letme tell you something related to
assessing your sobriety.
More specifically, trying toquickly sober up with some home
remedy.
Let me deal with the three thatI've heard the most about.
This'll be quick.
First, contrary to popularbelief, coffee does not sober
you up.
(34:22):
It may wake you up, get youwired, whatever, but it
absolutely does not lessen theimpairment to your motor skills,
reaction time, decision making,judgment, all those things that
you have to have to safely drivea car.
Second, exercise doesn't helpeither.
Third, take a cold showerdoesn't help either.
(34:44):
These home remedies to sober youup fast just don't work.
And how many people have youknown that have had too much to
drink but went ahead and droveafter they quote unquote sobered
up by doing one of these homeremedies?
All they did was fool themselvesand they may have felt more
awake.
I mean, it got their heartpumping and got cardio in for
the day, or smelled a lotbetter, but guess what?
(35:06):
They were still drunk and wenton the road and put themselves
and many others at risk, soplease do us all a favor and
pass the truth along that onlytime will sober you up.
Time is what is needed.
The body must be given time tometabolize the poison that
alcohol is to the human body andflush it out.
And that's that.
We all know time waits for noone, but it also won't speed up
(35:30):
for anyone either.
And coffee, exercise and coldshower can't help time in this
regard.
Best thing to do is sleep it offat a friend's house or wherever.
Finally, we arrive at the bigfinish.
As I close, let me highlightsomething for you.
One out of eight drunk driversinvolved in a fatal crash have a
(35:50):
prior DUI within three years ofthat crash.
That means that by far most ofthe drunk drivers killing people
have no prior DUIs.
They are first timers with noreal incentive not to drive
drunk.
They live in our communities.
They knew how we think of andtreat drunk drivers.
Not bad, not bad at all.
(36:11):
So they knew that the odds ofthem getting caught were slim
and none, and even if they werecaught, they knew nothing of
real consequence would happen tothem in court.
With this terrible combinationof woefully inadequate
resourcing and the lack ofbehavior-changing sentencing in
our courts, it's no wonder somany people take the risk and
drive drunk.
They believe, like everycriminal, that the risk is worth
(36:34):
whatever they think the rewardis.
All the death that comes from asociety just not caring about
those family members, thoseseven year old boys that are
left behind to pick up thepieces.
It's sad, but it also makes meangry, I'm not gonna lie about
it.
Angry because, as I've said, allof this is preventable and I
went through all of these causesso we can talk about the
(36:54):
solutions.
Please listen to Part Two of thedrunk driving episode where I
will tell you how we really canprevent this scourge.
Prevention won't happenovernight, but I'm sure we can
get it done.
Thank you for listening to theofficial podcast of the Charles
County State's Attorney'sOffice.
I'm your State's Attorney, TonyCovington.
I'm signing off just like myfather, Major George Vassar
Covington would (37:17):
Rangers Lead the Way.
Covington Out.
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