A Stitch in Haste

Pathetic boo-hoo article in the Washington Post about how shocked, shocked, people are at the costs of DUI convictions:

As Virginia and other states across the country tighten laws against DUI offenses, the legal ramifications of an arrest are becoming more serious and more predictable. But the personal fallout is harder to measure.
...
Many who received a DUI conviction said its huge financial costs and burdensome restrictions upended their lives.
...
Nearly a year after her arrest, [one interviewed DUI convict] has admitted she made a mistake, yet she still can't believe her single drink was excessive.
...
"They look at me like I'm an alcoholic," she said. "Everyone looks at me like I'm a criminal." (SIC!!!)

Some first-time offenders said they drank too much because of an emotional crisis, then were caught driving while in that condition. (So what?!?)
...
The typical cost of drinking and driving in Virginia ranges from $5,000 to $20,000, according to a 2003 study by the Thomas Jefferson Community Criminal Justice Board in Charlottesville, a group of law enforcement officials.

In addition to attorney and court fees, drunk drivers usually have to pay for car towing, restricted licenses and reinstatement of their regular licenses.
...
Pat Bowman, a counselor at the Fairfax Alcohol Safety Action Program, often asks those in the program, most of them professionals, to list the time and the money they have spent since their arrest. It averages more than $10,000.

"It's amazing," she said. "They could have taken a cab for $50."

I might be a libertarian, but I'm not that much of a libertarian. If you drink, and you drive, and you get caught -- well, too bad! Stop whining.

More at the Permalink!
Oh, but Kip, you're the one always blogging about cost-benefit analysis? (An example here.) Can't we be too stringent in imposing legal limits? What about all the cab fare, missed functions, lost productivity, broken marriages, etc., from basically upright citizens who had "just that one cognac and Coke" and whose BAC was "just a smidgen" above the legal limit?

Too bad. Don't drink and drive -- period. Zero tolerance, end of discussion.

Imagine the response if someone tried the same argument with drinking while pregnant. No reasonable person would tolerate for a moment any kind of "cost-benefit analysis" to the expecting mother who is contemplating "just that one cognac and Coke."

Too bad. Don't drink while pregnant -- period. Zero tolerance, end of discussion.

The exact same analysis for the exact same reasons -- and with the exact same conclusion.

To put the analysis in strictly economic terms (which, unfortunately, both economists and lawyers have to do all the time): Sometimes corner solutions are optimal.

Zero tolerance for drunk driving is such a case.

Compare and contrast the criminal approach to drunk driving to the civil approach (i.e., suing someone for negligence). In any tort, liability is an absolute -- yes or no, did you do it? (There are a handful of slightly more complicated examples -- joint liability, vicarious liability, etc., but they don't affect my thesis here). The majority opinion in tort law is that driving after any alcohol consumption whatsoever is per se negligence (i.e., patently and unconditionally unreasonable behavior).

Why should criminal law be any different?

P.S. Don't know who Tobias Beecher is? Click here.

UPDATE #1: Balko disagrees with me. He's wrong.

UPDATE #2: Overlawyered.com follows up, as I failed to, on the response to the original WaPo article and has some links. I'm unpersuaded. See also my subsequent post on the subject here.