Court Opinion

ID: 9665962
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:00:32.245962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:21.258992
License: Public Domain

SUNDBY, J.
(concurring). I believe that the trial judge showed a full appreciation of the societal problem of coping with the drunk driver and the specific problem posed in sentencing this particular offender. Society, acting through the state legislature, has adopt*214ed the policy that drunk-driving repeaters shall be imprisoned. The range of imprisonment is intended to reflect the seriousness of the offender’s conduct. In this case, the offender was on parole supervision for previous drunk driving offenses. One of his prior offenses was homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. Given this record, the trial court could not, in good conscience, sentence Meddaugh to the minimum term of imprisonment permitted by law. The trial judge was convinced, however, that Meddaugh was in need of treatment for the disease of alcoholism, and was convinced that he could not receive the needed treatment if he were imprisoned in the county jail for the period of imprisonment his offense calls for. Unfortunately, the legislature has not as yet recognized that imprisonment as a deterrent to drunk driving is an inadequate substitute for treatment when the behavior is the result of a disease. Much as I would like to rewrite the statutes to allow trial judges to sentence drunk drivers to supervised treatment as a condition of probation, I am not a legislator.