Drunk drivers in Texas who kill parents of a child will now be required to pay child support

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don't have any sympathy for drunk drivers, but I don't see why a drunk driver who happens to kill two parents should be punished more harshly than a drunk driver who kills two elderly people, two college students, two parents whose children are all adults. All drunk driving is bad.

By this logic, why should a drunk driver who kills someone get a harsher sentence than a drunk driver who doesn’t kill anyone?

Also, under this bill, do you have to pay child support if you deliberate murder a parent?

[Ferguson97]

[a well-thought-out post]

There is not one word you typed that is a material Point against this bill. Do the crime, pay the price.

One of the rare times that Fuzzy is in the right, and you dunk on him? Come on.

These people are already paying the price when they serve their sentence. There's no actual reason to have this bill other than lizard-brain.

What about mass shooters who make orphans? Drug dealers? Do they pay child support too?

And the bill says that they have to start making payments a year after their sentence, so let's say someone drives drunk and kills two parents, leaving a 5-year-old orphan. The trial takes a year (which would be very quick), and they're sentenced to 10 years (which would be very lenient). They don't have to start payments until 1 year later.

So now the orphan is 17-years-old. So, they're only getting 1 year of child support from the killer.

This isn't even going to help that many people.

It's just a pointless bill to make it seem like they're Tough On Crime^TM and Compassionate Conservatives^TM.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

We're talking about people who will be sentenced to prison for a lengthy period of time.  I cannot think of a state in the Union where DUI-Manslaughter (or however the crime is styled) where state prison sentences aren't part of the punishment for such offenders.

The Child Support system already has enough people in their Debtor's Gulag.  People who face Writs of Bodily Attachment, or even criminal charges for failing to pay child support, even when the ability to pay is, arguably, not there.  We're not talking about willful deadbeats; we're talking about people who are unable to work enough to both pay their child support AND keep a roof over their head.  

For those in this situation who have means, they can (and are) civilly sued.  Those who are not are likely to be in a situation to where they will be behind the 8 ball for the rest of their lives.  I don't mean not being able to afford to buy a house; I'm talking about not being able to keep a roof over your head or afford to get to work (especially given that you will likely not have a valid driver license ever again).  If the end is more punishment, I believe that one who has completed a prison sentence has already been punished, and the punishment of probation or parole ought to be a punishment where one can succeed, and not be so oppressive as being a deliberate set-up for failure.  We are talking about a population that is, at least initially, far less employable than they were at the start of their sentence.

Let's also not forget that much "child support" is actually reimbursement to the government for social services rendered or benefits paid out.  It's about reducing the cost of government without cutting budgets or increasing taxes; it's about a plan for "revenue enhancement".  And it's unrealistic.  It's part of the unrealistic "taking responsibility" mantra that is, in fact, the attempts to get blood from stones under a different name.  That these people be required to serve prison time is one thing.  That these people be hit with child support after their release is stone-bleeding and buck-passing.  

There is not one word you typed that is a material Point against this bill. Do the crime, pay the price.

Government sets the price.  The price ought to be reasonable.  Time in prison is reasonable for such an offense.  Expecting an ex-convict to support a person's family is not a reasonable expectation.

I'll repeat this:  Government sets the price.  The price ought to be reasonable.  Expecting an ex-convict to support a person's family when they are newly released from prison, their lives usually shattered, their employability at a nadir, is a ridiculous expectation.  You act and sound as if prison is not a punishment.  You know better.

[DaleCooper]

Prison is such a severe punishment (especially these days) that there is very little reason to even bother living afterward, so I think that's enough punishment for any crime. The problem with the government introducing payments into the equation is that it will almost certainly lead to people's ability to pay being taken into account when sentencing, which will ultimately just result in harsher punishments for poor people.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is not something you have to worry about if you simply avoid driving drunk.

Something which is incredibly easy to do. I remember an ad in my school student paper for a taxi company that said "How would you like to arrive?" with then drawings of an ambulance, a police car, and a taxi. And Lyft and Uber means that now you don't even need to deal with the annoyance of taxi companies.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Just give everybody money, but give people whose parent is killed by drunk driving a little bit extra. It's really that simple.

[Fight for Trump]

This is another example of American vengeance-driven lawmaking. The US is the most lenient country on drunk driving in the world (by some distance, in many cases), and instead of making logical reforms through changing insurance regulations, increasing alcohol taxes to fund victim reparations, or lowering the legal BAC limit, lawmakers instead choose braindead red meat.

How about the children of drunk drivers who get their futures stolen from them to pay for other kids? (as if having a parent in prison isn't enough) That is not justice, that is revenge.

Drunk driving deaths are a collective risk that is "accepted" by a society when they choose to allow two separate legal activities that happen to be illegal and dangerous when done in conjunction. That makes it logical for the financial consequences to at least be partially borne on a collective basis, like through the insurance system or alcohol taxes.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Idk if this is the *best* way of addressing the issue, but I'm alright with it.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Is it just me or are southern states getting more into morality? Not criticizing it but with this, the social media parental consent in Louisiana etc. The latter passed with bipartisan support too

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

I don't have any sympathy for drunk drivers, but I don't see why a drunk driver who happens to kill two parents should be punished more harshly than a drunk driver who kills two elderly people, two college students, two parents whose children are all adults. All drunk driving is bad.

By this logic, why should a drunk driver who kills someone get a harsher sentence than a drunk driver who doesn’t kill anyone?

You can easily make the case that they should get the same sentence. Frankly I've never understood why attempted murder and murder don't have the same sentence. Someone who fails at murdering someone through pure random chance is no less a danger to the public and is in no less need of punishment than one who succeeds.

[Skill and Chance]

Drunk driving is not much better than murder manslaughter, in my opinion.

[Pericles]

The punishment should be about the severity of the crime itself, and not based on 'luck' of who the victims happen to be. This is just weird imo, if they want sentences to be tougher why not just raise those?

[Ferguson97]

I don't have any sympathy for drunk drivers, but I don't see why a drunk driver who happens to kill two parents should be punished more harshly than a drunk driver who kills two elderly people, two college students, two parents whose children are all adults. All drunk driving is bad.

By this logic, why should a drunk driver who kills someone get a harsher sentence than a drunk driver who doesn’t kill anyone?

A drunk driver who killed someone and a drunk driver who didn't kill anyone have committed identical actions (drunk driving) but their actions have not produced identical results (one has killed someone and the other has not).

A drunk driver who killed an elderly couple and a drunk driver who has killed two parents of young children have committed identical actions (drunk driving) and those actions have produced identical results (two dead people).

Punishing the driver who killed the young parents more harshly than the driver who killed the old couple is assigning greater moral value to the young parents than the old couple.

And the law should not say that some people have a greater more value than others.

[Former President tack50]

This is another example of American vengeance-driven lawmaking. The US is the most lenient country on drunk driving in the world (by some distance, in many cases), and instead of making logical reforms through changing insurance regulations, increasing alcohol taxes to fund victim reparations, or lowering the legal BAC limit, lawmakers instead choose braindead red meat.

How about the children of drunk drivers who get their futures stolen from them to pay for other kids? (as if having a parent in prison isn't enough) That is not justice, that is revenge.

Drunk driving deaths are a collective risk that is "accepted" by a society when they choose to allow two separate legal activities that happen to be illegal and dangerous when done in conjunction. That makes it logical for the financial consequences to at least be partially borne on a collective basis, like through the insurance system or alcohol taxes.

Is it really though? For a quick comparison, here is a comparison between a random US swing state (Wisconsin) and my home country.

In Wisconsin, apparently the penalty for vehicular homicide is "up to 25 years in jail" and a fine of up to 100000$ USD

Meanwhile, here you would be charged with merely 1.5-4.5 years in prison. That's it! Oh and there's no worse crime if the victim happens to be a child, killing an 80 year old is equal to killing an 8 year old.

(Keep in mind, if you do not have any prior convictions, most sentences under 2 years semi-automatically turn into probation, so there's a non zero chance you don't even go to prison). There's a fine on top of that, but Spanish fines are weird and hard to calculate; though I seriously doubt it's anywhere close to 100k.

Now, I could accept that our laws may be too lenient (I personally disagree but whatever). Though considering regular homicide carries a 10-15 year prison sentence and rape a 6-12 year sentence; it's kinda hard to argue that drunk driving is overly lenient unless you argue it's an equally bad crime to rape or that we are soft on crime in general.

[Fight for Trump]

0.08% BAC is one of the highest legal limits in the world, and enforcement is not as strict as in other countries. First offense DUI isn't even a criminal offense in Wisconsin.

[Skill and Chance]

I don't have any sympathy for drunk drivers, but I don't see why a drunk driver who happens to kill two parents should be punished more harshly than a drunk driver who kills two elderly people, two college students, two parents whose children are all adults. All drunk driving is bad.

By this logic, why should a drunk driver who kills someone get a harsher sentence than a drunk driver who doesn’t kill anyone?

A drunk driver who killed someone and a drunk driver who didn't kill anyone have committed identical actions (drunk driving) but their actions have not produced identical results (one has killed someone and the other has not).

A drunk driver who killed an elderly couple and a drunk driver who has killed two parents of young children have committed identical actions (drunk driving) and those actions have produced identical results (two dead people).

Punishing the driver who killed the young parents more harshly than the driver who killed the old couple is assigning greater moral value to the young parents than the old couple.

And the law should not say that some people have a greater more value than others.

IDK if society needs to reproduce itself in the long run, isn't there a pretty reasonable argument that a child or a parent/legal guardian of a child actually is more valuable than a single adult?  The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution outlaws most cases of explicit favoritism here, so it's kind of a moot point, but historically this was a very widely accepted principle.  

[Ferguson97]

IDK if society needs to reproduce itself in the long run, isn't there a pretty reasonable argument that a child or a parent/legal guardian of a child actually is more valuable than a single adult?  The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution outlaws most cases of explicit favoritism here, so it's kind of a moot point, but historically this was a very widely accepted principle.  

Yes, and that's terrible.

The logical conclusion of this argument is that the life of an infertile/sterile person matters less than someone who is not.

That gets into eugenics-territory pretty quickly.

[lfromnj]

This is another example of American vengeance-driven lawmaking. The US is the most lenient country on drunk driving in the world (by some distance, in many cases), and instead of making logical reforms through changing insurance regulations, increasing alcohol taxes to fund victim reparations, or lowering the legal BAC limit, lawmakers instead choose braindead red meat.

How about the children of drunk drivers who get their futures stolen from them to pay for other kids? (as if having a parent in prison isn't enough) That is not justice, that is revenge.

Drunk driving deaths are a collective risk that is "accepted" by a society when they choose to allow two separate legal activities that happen to be illegal and dangerous when done in conjunction. That makes it logical for the financial consequences to at least be partially borne on a collective basis, like through the insurance system or alcohol taxes.

Is it really though? For a quick comparison, here is a comparison between a random US swing state (Wisconsin) and my home country.

In Wisconsin, apparently the penalty for vehicular homicide is "up to 25 years in jail" and a fine of up to 100000$ USD

Meanwhile, here you would be charged with merely 1.5-4.5 years in prison. That's it! Oh and there's no worse crime if the victim happens to be a child, killing an 80 year old is equal to killing an 8 year old.

(Keep in mind, if you do not have any prior convictions, most sentences under 2 years semi-automatically turn into probation, so there's a non zero chance you don't even go to prison). There's a fine on top of that, but Spanish fines are weird and hard to calculate; though I seriously doubt it's anywhere close to 100k.

Now, I could accept that our laws may be too lenient (I personally disagree but whatever). Though considering regular homicide carries a 10-15 year prison sentence and rape a 6-12 year sentence; it's kinda hard to argue that drunk driving is overly lenient unless you argue it's an equally bad crime to rape or that we are soft on crime in general.

Wisconsin is actually the most lenient state on DUI's that are just pure DUI's such as at a traffic stop. IIRC the 1st DUI isn't even a crime, its just treated as  a traffic violation.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I don't have any sympathy for drunk drivers, but I don't see why a drunk driver who happens to kill two parents should be punished more harshly than a drunk driver who kills two elderly people, two college students, two parents whose children are all adults. All drunk driving is bad.

By this logic, why should a drunk driver who kills someone get a harsher sentence than a drunk driver who doesn’t kill anyone?

A drunk driver who killed someone and a drunk driver who didn't kill anyone have committed identical actions (drunk driving) but their actions have not produced identical results (one has killed someone and the other has not).

A drunk driver who killed an elderly couple and a drunk driver who has killed two parents of young children have committed identical actions (drunk driving) and those actions have produced identical results (two dead people).

Punishing the driver who killed the young parents more harshly than the driver who killed the old couple is assigning greater moral value to the young parents than the old couple.

And the law should not say that some people have a greater more value than others.

The two drunk murders have produced different results. They have murdered different people, with different families. And even without this Texas law, they would be liable for the wrongful deaths of their victims, and their liabilities would depend on the details of the victims and their families. This law just formally establishes a predefined liability for a particular sort of drunk murder by car.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don't have any sympathy for drunk drivers, but I don't see why a drunk driver who happens to kill two parents should be punished more harshly than a drunk driver who kills two elderly people, two college students, two parents whose children are all adults. All drunk driving is bad.

By this logic, why should a drunk driver who kills someone get a harsher sentence than a drunk driver who doesn’t kill anyone?

A drunk driver who killed someone and a drunk driver who didn't kill anyone have committed identical actions (drunk driving) but their actions have not produced identical results (one has killed someone and the other has not).

A drunk driver who killed an elderly couple and a drunk driver who has killed two parents of young children have committed identical actions (drunk driving) and those actions have produced identical results (two dead people).

Punishing the driver who killed the young parents more harshly than the driver who killed the old couple is assigning greater moral value to the young parents than the old couple.

And the law should not say that some people have a greater more value than others.

I don’t think the law should distinguish between killing yound parents and killing a young couple.

But I also don’t think its unreasonable or immoral to say that some lives have more value than others. 

In determing how to value of a human life lost (in assessing risk or deciding who gets an organ transplant, etc) our society often thinks in terms of “years of lives lost” rather than “lives lost”.  And this is very reasonable; I do think that a young person dying is a greater tragedy than a 90-year old dying, becuase the 90-year old already lived a full life and didn’t miss out on much by dying slightly sooner.

[DrScholl]

That's basically a form of restitution. I don't see it as distinguishing whose life is more important, but as an issue of the perpetrator having to take financial responsibility. If children end up in the foster care system they can end up pretty bad off which would be an effect of their parents being killed. That aside, family members could sue for damages in civil court anyway.

[Ferguson97]

But I also don’t think its unreasonable or immoral to say that some lives have more value than others. 

In determing how to value of a human life lost (in assessing risk or deciding who gets an organ transplant, etc) our society often thinks in terms of “years of lives lost” rather than “lives lost”.  And this is very reasonable; I do think that a young person dying is a greater tragedy than a 90-year old dying, becuase the 90-year old already lived a full life and didn’t miss out on much by dying slightly sooner.

This can get icky very quickly.

What other factors are we going to consider, beyond just age and parenthood status?

Suppose that the two people killed were the same age, both childless, etc. But one of them was renowned surgeon, while the other was a cashier at a grocery store.

Are we going to say that the surgeon's life matters more because he saves lives in his job, and the Walgreens cashier just rings up eggs, bread, and milk?

What about if one of the victims was a stage-three cancer patient, while the other was healthy?

What if one of the victims was convicted of tax fraud and drug possession, while the other is a law-abiding citizen?

How do you calculate the value of a human being?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

But I also don’t think its unreasonable or immoral to say that some lives have more value than others. 

In determing how to value of a human life lost (in assessing risk or deciding who gets an organ transplant, etc) our society often thinks in terms of “years of lives lost” rather than “lives lost”.  And this is very reasonable; I do think that a young person dying is a greater tragedy than a 90-year old dying, becuase the 90-year old already lived a full life and didn’t miss out on much by dying slightly sooner.

This can get icky very quickly.

What other factors are we going to consider, beyond just age and parenthood status?

Suppose that the two people killed were the same age, both childless, etc. But one of them was renowned surgeon, while the other was a cashier at a grocery store.

Are we going to say that the surgeon's life matters more because he saves lives in his job, and the Walgreens cashier just rings up eggs, bread, and milk?

What about if one of the victims was a stage-three cancer patient, while the other was healthy?

What if one of the victims was convicted of tax fraud and drug possession, while the other is a law-abiding citizen?

How do you calculate the value of a human being?

This is why I said that I don’t think the law should distinguish between killing people on this sort of basis.

But there are other situations where we already make these sort of judgments, the most straightforward being organ transplant lists.

If I were forced to do it, I would probably do it on based on age alone.

[Del Tachi]

The state ought not be a mechanism for restitution to private parties.

[Progressive Pessimist]

My cousin runs a foundation in Florida for her sister who tragically died after a drunk driver collided with her car. I wonder if she'll pursue something like this because it's actually a good idea, and for it to be out of Texas makes this the state's broken clock moment of the year.