That doesn't make him any less culpable for his actions.

I'd say that he is directly responsible for his friend's death. Being drunk isn't an excuse.

I didn't imply anything. I just said the family of the headless guy wants the driver out of jail.

The driver is certainly an alcoholic. Alcoholics will do amazing things while in a blackout and have no memory of doing them afterwards. The friend was partially responsible for his own demise since he got into a car with a drunk driver after having imbibed so much himself that he could no longer make decent judgements about such things.

Everyone thinks they're bullet proof when they're 21. Add enough 80 proof whiskey to that mindset, and you have someone who has left rational thought far behind. I pity everyone involved. The driver should definately do a stretch in a cell, but doesn't deserve the death penalty. He didn't deliberately kill his friend and his friend went willingly in the car with him. The driver will have to spend the rest of his life with the knowledge of what he did. The thought of THAT punishment makes me shudder. People take their OWN lives over stuff like that.

You have too much faith in peoples' willingness to punish themselves and I have too much experience in peoples' ability to rationalize and delude themselves.

The only thing that prevented anyone else from dying in that situation is chance.

I agree that people in general are very good about living lives filled with denial about both the world around them and the consequences of their own actions. However, the act of accidently decapitating your own friend and driving home spattered in blood with his headless body next to you is something that only someone who is quite literally insane could ignore. Despite what they may say on the evening news, most of us do still retain some sense of right and wrong. The sociopaths of society are still a small minority. I think that young man will have nightmares and be filled with a horrible sense of remorse for the rest of his days.

Well, they'd had their warning...

http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/20...8/10154573.txt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Cobb County police officer stopped the pair at the intersection of Johnson Ferry and Lassiter roads in March 2001 because the officer noticed they weren't wearing their seatbelts, according to records obtained from Cobb County State Court.

The officer then discovered that Hutcherson, then 17, and Brohm, then 19, had been drinking. The officer also found two 12 packs of Ice House beer in the car and an opened beer container, court records show.

Both were taken to the Cobb County Adult Detention Center and given multiple citations, the reports state.

Brohm was charged with possession of alcohol by a minor. His court records were sealed after he successfully completed his sentence.

Hutcherson, who was driving the car, was charged with DUI. He pleaded guilty, was ordered take a 17-hour class on the dangers of drinking and driving, spent a day in jail, was placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.

Look--addiction is real. Nobody seems to understand this--even after stories like this one are circulated. Ins. Co. no longer pay for addiction treatment.--talk to them about it.

He'll probably sue the utility that put that guy wire there and retire rich. :mad:

Yo, Bruce! What's with the gloomy tag line? Lighten up there, big guy! You can't be THAT old and if you DID vanish, I for one would actually miss you, and I'm not an old man. ;)

This situation reminds me of the chick that hit the homeless guy with her car and left him dying, stuck to the grillwork and windshield, in her garage for three days ...

Of course, he lingered a bit.

Oh, and I wonder if the headless fellah said anything like "hey Y'all, watch this ..." as he leaned out the window ...

What does addiction have to do with this?

And I understand addiction better than you might suppose.

My point is perhaps these two men had addiction issues with alcohol that were ignored. Typically, people who drink to the extreme these two did have alcoholism issues. Some comments in this thread called for the driver's execution for the tragedy---I just thought maybe there were other things at play besides two kids going out and tossing a few back.

See my post at 09-07-2004, 01:49 PM.

Well, exactly. It wasn't taken seriously. They slapped their wrists.

My point was that their behavior was noticed and part of the public record.

They knew, their family knew, and their friends and neighbors knew.

Noone is responsible for them not getting "treatment" for their "addiction" but themselves.

I doubt that they were addicts, just regularly, as in consistantly, drunk. That's not addiction, that's just stupid.