Originally Posted by
Blue Order
Reckless endangerment might fly, but attempted murder? You guys need to get a grip and learn what "intent" means.
Anyway, without doing some research, I'm not sure at all that the penalty for reckless endangerment is greater than the penalty for drunk driving.
MANSLAUGHTER is the term you seek. Manslaughter is charged when a person causes the death of another in an accident but without malice and intent. Cases of impairment are those in which the suspect cannot be expected to make a rational or safe judgement due to intoxication or other factor preventing it.
If your riding lawnmower throttle broke and you ran over Billy and killed him, you probably did not want to. That's manslaughter. If it did because you knew prior to that the throttle was bad and capable of severe actions yet ignored that, that is gross neglience and it may become more than a manslaughter.
If you wanted Billy dead and got drunk to "gain the courage", that is murder and premeditated plus it is a felony possibly (in the case of using a car, certainly).
The woman in Boise that clipped the female cyclist with her Hummer was stoned and in possesion of drugs that are usually only prescribed or found in Europe...she committed several felonies for possessing controlled substances and her charges for killing the cyclist are much worse due to the drugs.
Why more so than alcohol? I don't know, doesn't make sense but possession of alcohol isn't normally a felony like drugs. Go figure. They keep saying drunk driving laws are becoming tougher but you still hear stories.