Court Opinion

ID: 9429598
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:27:18.235743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:20.325688
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion but add a personal observation.
I yield to no one in my profound personal concern about the unwillingness of our national consciousness to face up to — and to do something about — the continuing slaughter upon our Nation’s highways, a good percentage of which is due to drivers who are drunk or semi-incapacitated because of alcohol or drug ingestion. I have spoken in these Reports to this point before. Perez v. Campbell, 402 U. S. 637, 657, and 672 (1971) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part); Tate v. Short, 401 U. S. 395, 401 (1971) (concurring opinion). See also South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553, 555-559 (1983).
And it is amazing to me that one of our great States — one which, by its highway signs, proclaims to be diligent and emphatic in its prosecution of the drunken driver — still classifies driving while intoxicated as a civil violation that allows only a money forfeiture of not more than $300 so long as it is a first offense. Wis. Stat. §346.65(2)(a) (Supp. 1983-1984). The State, like the indulgent parent, hesitates to discipline the spoiled child very much, even though the child is engaging in an act that is dangerous to others who are law abiding and helpless in the face of the child’s act. See ante, at 754, n. 14 (citing other statutes). Our personal convenience still weighs heavily in the balance, and the highway deaths and *756injuries continue. But if Wisconsin and other States choose by legislation thus to regulate their penalty structure, there is, unfortunately, nothing in the United States Constitution that says they may not do so.