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Comment by astura | Hacker News Reader

>This sort of time in jail is what you get for murder in parts of Europe

Uhhhhhhhh... You know he killed multiple people, right?

As I've mentioned in numerous other comments, there is a well-recognized and codified difference between manslaughter and murder [0].

He was also not charged with murder, but with "Operating While Intoxicated Causing Death" [1], which I believe is a manslaughter charge.

[0]: https://quinnanlaw.com/criminal-defense/murder-vs-manslaught...

[1]: https://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumb...

Who the fuck cares?

As a daughter of one of these useless degenerates, I'm more concerned about people who have so little regard toward human life that they'd casually endanger others for little to no reason than those who deliberately plot to kill someone else for personal gain.

Of course, there's overlap in those two groups too...

I'm sorry you had a drunken parent. I commiserate and I have close relatives/friends who have grown up in such households, some who are people like that themselves.

I share sympathy for your viewpoint, but I don't agree with it (and neither do most court systems). But I do respect your difference of opinion.

Ehhh... Wat?

True, my parent was/is drunken my entire life, with a month or two of sobriety spliced in here and there. That doesn't mean that alcohol somehow magically caused him to be a useless degenerate who has no regard for human life. From what I hear my dad's biggest unexcusable behavior in life came before the alcoholism. His flashes of sobriety that I witnessed growing up didn't magically reveal a good person.

Using alcoholism to excuse any behavior is just wrong, imo. My mom readily used it to justify why my dad beat her and us. That's not okay.

Assholes need to be hold accountable and their actions should not be explained away.

In this case, it seems quite clear that this man is not a "useless degenerate" in the absence of alcohol — in fact he is doing productive, intelligent work.

I believe it is quite apparent that alcohol/ism was the key factor in his terrible decisions. Without alcohol, he isn't behaving like a useless degenerate.

Therefore, we can quite comfortably say that alcohol is an explanation, if not an excuse, for his behaviour.

Does the distinction matter when he chose to drink and drive?Plenty of people choose to not drink and plenty of people choose to drink and not get behind the wheel of the car - seems like his degenerate behavior is pretty ingrained

Both manslaughter and murder count as "killing." Not to mention, the dangers of drunk driving are well-known by now, and he still decided to drive drunk. Actions have consequences, and now two people are dead due to his entirely voluntary actions.

something I've always been curious about and honestly not trying to be edgy. Why is it that with the choice of drunk driving, it is 100% rationally made and bears the full consequence of his actions, but when alcohol is involved in sexual relations, then it is perfectly fine to argue the inability to make sound judgement?

Are you talking about the phenomenon of blaming poor judgment in consensual sex on alcohol? One major difference is that the unintended consequences of consensual sex are usually reversible afterwards, whereas there’s no undoing a death. Another is that alcohol is usually used as a face-saving measure in the first place. Even if both partners are not that drunk, they now have a socially acceptable excuse to have sex without being perceived to be “as” promiscuous as they would be otherwise. The “consequences” here aren’t so great anyways, at most maybe an unwanted pregnancy, which yes is something one should take responsibility for one way or the other anyways.

If you’re talking about alcohol as an excuse for sexual assault, I agree, and I don’t know anyone in my social circle who wouldn’t. If you’re unable to control yourself on alcohol, then don’t drink. If you drink and end up assaulting someone, sexually or not, that’s entirely on you and you should be punished for it. Don’t be a Brock Turner. The legal system may have double standards, but the rest of us shouldn’t.

yeah I suppose I was considering what seemed at the time consensual, and separately sexual assault(which is not ambiguous at all).

It was drilled into us at college and in the military that a woman can not consent if intoxicated, no matter how sober they seem. However, this might just be a zero tolerance policy to better control those without good judgement,

It just always seemed weird to me that two people could drink the same amount, both be engaged and consenting at the time, then the day after still be classified as a sexual assault.

Exactly, sexual predators and molesters shouldn't be given just a slap on the wrist because they had a few drinks first.

Sex crimes in general are routinely downplayed as it is. Something like 99% of reported rapes don't lead to prosecution. And men (it's overwhelming men who rape) know this, and know they can basically get away with it. It's disgraceful.

It is certainly a double standard.

> Both manslaughter and murder count as "killing."

Your use of quotations seems to imply that you're saying that GP used the word "killing". That's incorrect; the word used was "murder" and, as GP already said, manslaughter is not murder.

I might have misinterpreted your use of quotations, but in that case then I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

The word used in the grandparent comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25899179) was “killed,” not “murdered”

With "GP" I meant the original comment, the one by sebmellen. The comment you linked is another misinterpretation of sebmellen's original point. My comment applies as much to that one as it does to the one I replied to.

That doesn't make the two people any less dead.

No, of course not. Our previous President not having taken more decisive action on the COVID pandemic doesn't make 400,000 people any less dead.

But this is, in my opinion, more a tragedy of circumstance than anything else, and that's what our court systems should be working to mediate. This guy, with a strict halfway-house counselling & treatment program, could be solving mathematical problems at a top 10 university right now. Instead, he's locked up in prison for the foreseeable future — what good does that do for the two dead people, for society, or for him?

Prisons should be there to house people who can't be rehabilitated, and to punish those who've done things seriously wrong (which may include him, but I would err to think not).

How is ending two lives not doing something seriously wrong?

I haven’t read the article yet so I may circle back to my comment here after reading it.

What’s stopping him from solving math problems in prison? Math doesn’t disintegrate past prison walls.

> He was also not charged with murder, but with “Operating While Intoxicated Causing Death” [1], which I believe is a manslaughter charge.

No, its what it says on the tin, any mapping to common law categories is imperfect; though, if you want to map it to common law homicide categories, murder of the “depraved indifference to human life” type would seem to be a decent fit. It may also, in common law terms, be a fit for felony murder, depending on whether DUI is a felony in the state and circumstances committed (typically, its not for a first offense, but may be for subsequent offenses).

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