DWI Deaths: Is It Murder?

Recently, I watched a clip from an episode of 60 Minutes on CBS titled DWI Deaths: Is It Murder? While extremely sad this video really hit home with me, and I really thought that it properly addressed the ideas that I was trying to address in my project. This video was really powerful and I think that it would be great for everyone who visits my display at the Marketplace of Ideas to watch it, so I am going to have it up on a laptop. The story is about the Flynn family. The Flynns were at a wedding and in order to remain safe and be able to dance and party all night, they hired a limo to take them home from the wedding. While they made an appropriate, safe decision in order to keep themselves safe, Martin Heidgen, a drunk, 24-year old insurance salesman, unfortunately was not as smart. Despite his friends warning him not to drive, with a BAC of over three times the legal driving limit, Heidgen got in his pickup truck and was driving the wrong way down the interstate that the Flynns were on. He slammed into their limo, instantly killing the limo driver, decapitating the Flynn’s beautiful 7-year-old daughter, and causing life threatening injuries to the remaining passengers in the limo. Although it is extremely rare in America, Heidgen was charged with murder by depraved indifference, a much more serious charge than the standard manslaughter charge that is usually given in these cases. Manslaughter comes with a sentence of probation to 15 years, while murder comes with a mandatory penalty of 15 years to life. Kathleen Rice, the district attorney who prosecuted the case, has become a forefront in the fight against drunk drivers. She understands the horrible ways in which a poor decision can change the lives of an innocent family, and she has been working day in and day out in order to change the way in which our nation views and punishes drunk driving. Rice has made it her passion to go against drunk drivers and prosecute them to the fullest. Driving drunk is “as inevitable as taking a gun and firing it at an individual who’s standing five feet away from you,” she says. It is something that can easily be avoided, and for that reason, it is unacceptable that people can get away with murdering someone else and blaming their actions on the effects of the alcohol.