[Magdalen] Heather Cook

[Grace Cangialosi]

Don, thank you for this post. I'm sure it was hard to write, but it gives
me much to think about. I know that some of my anger about the sentence
comes out of my own history with a husband who frequently drove drunk,
though he was never involved in an accident, TBTG.

Grace

On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 9:16 PM, <thedonboyd at austin.rr.com> wrote:

> As some of you know, my daughter Amy was killed in November of 1992 when a
> drunk driver drove his vehicle head-on into the car Amy was driving.  I do
> not claim that this circumstance gives me any special authority or wisdom
> greater than any of the rest of you, but it is fair to say that I have had
> a long time to think about the issues around drunk driving.  Here is what I
> think at present:
>
> (1)  The wishes of the family of the man who was killed are irrelevant to
> the criminal case against the driver.  To define drunk driving as a crime
> is to declare it an injury to the state, to all its people, and the
> criminal justice system should aim to make them (not the family of the
> decedent alone) whole if possible, and to deter others from committing
> similar crimes in future.
> (2)  "Retributive justice,"  aka vengeance, is not something I can
> endorse, nor can I understand what people who claim that it can help to
> give the victim's family "closure."
> (3)  There is no such thing as "closure" as the term is used above.
> (4)  To the extent that a fiscal injury to the family of the victim can be
> demonstrated, there are civil remedies that may apply.  Liability (as some
> of your posts have suggested) may attach to Ms Cook's employer as well as
> to her person.   (Here--and only here IMO--are arguments about equity in
> magnitude of punishment in relation to magnitude of offense relevant.)
> (5)  As far as my awareness goes, drunk driving cases are extremely
> difficult to prosecute.  This may be due to the very high incidence of
> alcohol and/or drug abuse (and hence the disposition of jury panelists and
> judges to think that in some circumstances they themselves could have
> committed similar offenses).
> (6)  As others have pointed out, severity of sentencing does not correlate
> with reduced recidivism.  There is no evidence that the high cost of
> incarceration is compensated by reduction in the incidence of offenses.
>
> Finally, sin is sin is sin.  Heather Cook's sin (in this and in all her
> life) is between her and God, and is none of my (or anybody else's) damn
> business.
>
> God be merciful to me, a sinner.  God be merciful to Heather, a sinner.
>
>


-- 
Grace Cangialosi
Ruckersville, VA

*We must cry out against injustice or by our silence consent to it.
Dorothy Day*